Preamble

The House met at Hall past Two o'Clock

PRAYERS

[Mr. SPEAKER in the Chair]

Oral Answers to Questions — SUPPLEMENTARY QUESTIONS

Mr. Speaker: Before I call upon the hon. Member for Wembley, South (Mr. Russell), I should like to warn hon. Members that if I am rather severe on supplementaries today, it will be because there have been so many complaints that we do not reach later Questions on the Paper, entirely due, of course, to the number of supplementaries.

Oral Answers to Questions — TELEPHONE SERVICE

London Area

Mr. Russell: asked the Postmaster-General when he expects the automatic telephone service in the London area to be restored to its pre-war standard of operation.

The Postmaster-General (Mr. Ness Edwards): A comprehensive overhaul of the automatic telephone exchanges in London has recently been completed, and regular sampling of the service shows that the average standard of service is now rather better than pre-war. If the hon. Member has any particular cases of difficulty in mind, I shall be glad to make inquiry.

Mr. Russell: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that on the Abbey Exchange one frequently dials at least three times without anything happening at all, particularly when one is trying to get Temple Bar? Does he really think that that happened in pre-war days?

Mr. Ness Edwards: My information is that the average standard now is better than it was in pre-war days, but I will

take notice of the hon. Member's complaint and write to him about it.

Colonel Ropner: Does the right hon. Gentleman seriously contend that it is now easier to get either "Trunks" or "toll" than it was in pre-war days?

Mr. Ness Edwards: As a result of the sampling, that is the answer.

Commander Noble: asked the Postmaster-General how many applicants are now waiting for telephones in the London area.

Mr. Ness Edwards: There were 153,656 on 30th September, 1950.

Commander Noble: What is the position with regard to essential equipment needed to increase this service? Is this equipment still being exported? Is any more being made available for the home service?

Mr. Ness Edwards: It is not a matter of equipment; it is a matter of capital allocation. I would like to point out that last year, ending 30th September, we installed 109,785 telephones in this area.

Mrs. Jean Mann: Can my right hon. Friend explain the enormous demand for telephones from every part of the country, in view of the fact that this wicked Government are stifling private enterprise and have brought the country to the brink of bankruptcy?

Mr. H. A. Price: In view of this very long waiting list, will the right hon. Gentleman explain why his officers are touring my constituency looking for new subscribers?

Mr. Ness Edwards: It is still necessary to ascertain the potential demand in any area.

Capital Expenditure

Mr. Shepherd: asked the Postmaster-General on what basis he allocates capital expenditure in respect of telephone services in the various postal areas.

Mr. Ness Edwards: In allocating the limited capital resources of the Post Office, provision must be made on a national basis for the installation and accommodation of additional plant to cater for the growth of traffic in the trunk and overseas services. For local services, which absorb the bulk of the capital expenditure, allocations are made


to the Post Office regions, and through them to the telephone areas, on the basis of the best practical distribution of resources, having regard to the relative present and prospective needs.

Mr. Shepherd: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that many of these areas believe that the allocations finally made to them are on the basis of previous requirements and that that is not satisfactory, in view of changing populations and changing emphasis?

Mr. Ness Edwards: I had some reason to think that myself, but I have made certain alterations and I think that, in future, allocations will be found more in accord with potential demand.

Mr. Arthur Colegate: Would the Postmaster-General not now consider approaching the Chancellor of the Exchequer for a re-allocation of capital resources for the telephone service, as it is one of the most effective instruments in an efficient production and export drive?

Mr. Ness Edwards: That is always in my mind, but I am afraid I should not have the approval of the House in asking for the release of building materials and building labour to construct exchanges.

Installation Priorities

Mr. George Thomas: asked the Postmaster-General if he will state the order of priorities on which decisions are taken for the installation of telephones; and how far preferential consideration is given to schools before people urgently requiring telephones for their business.

Mr. Ness Edwards: First priority for telephone service is given to the essential requirements of public utilities, health and life saving services, Government departments, and businesses engaged on production and distribution for export or for saving imports. In the lower categories, educational institutions and certain classes of business take precedence over other applicants.

Birmingham

Mr. Yates: asked the Postmaster-General how many applicants were waiting for telephones in Birmingham at the

latest available date; and how long it will be before the existing shortage is overcome.

Mr. Ness Edwards: There were 15,180 on 30th September, 1950. These will be partially met by the provision of additional equipment and cables this year and next, but in view of our limited resources I regret that I cannot say when it will be possible to meet all outstanding applications.

Mr. Yates: Is the Minister satisfied that adequate progress is being made, especially in regard to the residential applicants, many of whom have been waiting for a very long time? Is he aware that there is a very long list?

Mr. Ness Edwards: We installed 8,600 telephones in this exchange area in the last year, which is certainly making an impact upon the problem. I regret to say that residential applicants will have to wait until we have met the needs of the more essential applicants.

Mr. Geoffrey Lloyd: Would the right hon. Gentleman bear in mind that there is likely to be considerably increased production activity in the Birmingham area as a result of the rearmament drive, and also that, as a result of the grave anxieties about raw materials, there is likely to be a considerable increase in the number of urgent calls?

Mr. Ness Edwards: In the allocation to the regions that is one of the considerations I am bearing in mind.

Mr. Harrison: In recognising the necessity for restricting exports of telephone equipment, would my right hon. Friend bear in mind also the need to keep open foreign markets?

Heywood Exchange

Mr. Sutcliffe: asked the Postmaster-General what progress is being made with the work at the Heywood telephone exchange; and if he will state when new subscribers will be connected.

Mr. Ness Edwards: The extension of the exchange was completed on 14th October and service is being given to new subscribers, in cases where wires in the local cables are available, as quickly as our labour resources allow.

Mr. Sutcliffe: Can the right hon. Gentleman say how long it will be before all those who have been on the waiting list for such a long time will be able to be connected?

Mr. Ness Edwards: We are starting to put them on now.

Sir Herbert Williams: Would the right hon. Gentleman not have been able to do the job more quickly if he had not put up a new exchange at Torquay with 500 lines for all the delegates at the conference there?

Oral Answers to Questions — POST OFFICE

Postmen (Establishment)

Mr. Vaughan-Morgan: asked the Postmaster-General what is the establishment of postmen in his Department; to what extent the number falls short of establishment; in what areas; and what steps he is taking towards recruitment.

Mr. Ness Edwards: On 1st July. 1950, the authorised establishment of full-time postmen was 80,647. The number employed was 1,618 short of establishment, the shortage being mainly in the London and Home Counties areas and at certain industrial centres in the Midlands and Lancashire. Special measures are taken, in co-operation with the Ministry of Labour and National Service, in areas where difficulty is experienced in obtaining recruits.

Mr. Vaughan-Morgan: In view of the fact that the establishment is short of the number required, will the Postmaster-General consider abolishing the upper age limit of 40 or 45, in the case of ex-Service men, that he is at present imposing?

Mr. Ness Edwards: There are difficulties about that. I am looking at it sympathetically to see what I can do, but it would raise the age of promotion to a very unreasonable level.

Staff (Political Activities)

Surgeon Lieut.-Commander Bennett: asked the Postmaster-General at what level in his Department the ban on spare-time political activity is applied.

Mr. Ness Edwards: Restrictions on political activities apply to staff above first-line supervisors in the minor, manipulative, engineering and allied grades.

They apply without exception to other grades, the bulk of which are common to all Government Departments.

Surgeon Lieut.-Commander Bennett: What is the reason for this distinction, apart from the obvious one of restricting activities to the proletarian level?

Mr. Ness Edwards: It has been held for a very long time in this House that high-grade civil servants ought not to interfere in political life.

Canteens

Mr. Shepherd: asked the Postmaster-General if he is aware that many post office canteens are below the accepted standard, and that post office men are required themselves to pay for improvements; and, in view of the big Post Office surplus, what steps he will take to improve the position.

Mr. Ness Edwards: All Post Office can teens receive financial assistance in the way of free accommodation and other facilities, which vary according to local conditions. The space provided is in some cases below standard but, unfortunately, major improvement is at present held up by the restriction on capital expenditure. I am considering the question of giving additional assistance in certain cases.

Mr. Shepherd: Surely the right hon. Gentleman cannot say that he is serious about getting staff in difficult areas like the Midlands when these canteens are miserably below the standard set in a decent private firm? Why should postmen, whose earnings are not very high, be called upon to pay a penny a week towards improving their canteen? I think it is disgraceful.

Mr. Ness Edwards: There are three types of canteens. Those which are now run as clubs naturally bear some responsibility for their club activities but, in general, I am trying to take a generous view of the assistance we should give in these cases.

Engineering Unions (Conference)

Mr. Boyd-Carpenter: asked the Postmaster-General if he will place in the Library a copy of the shorthand note of the conference presided over by him on


26th September, 1950, between representatives of the Engineering Officers (Telecommunications) Association and the Post Office Engineering Union.

Mr. Hollis: asked the Postmaster-General whether he will make available to the House the verbatim report of the meeting held on 26th September between himself and members of the Post Office Engineering Union and E.O.(T.)A.

Mr. Ness Edwards: No shorthand record of this conference was taken, but I have placed in the Library copies of a full report of the proceedings.

Mr. Harry Wallace: Can my right hon. Friend assist further conferences by making it clear that the Trades Union Congress is not affiliated to the Labour Party?

Mr. Ness Edwards: That is so, Sir.

Facilities, Cardiff

Mr. G. Thomas: asked the Postmaster-General whether he has considered the public petition from the residents of Ely, Cardiff, concerning the provision of more adequate post office facilities in that area; and whether he will make a statement.

Mr. Ness Edwards: I am considering the petition and will write to my hon. Friend.

Later Collections

Mr. Keeling: asked the Postmaster-General in which towns will later collections begin early in the new year.

Mr. Ness Edwards: I am not yet in a position to add anything to my answer to the hon. Member's Question of 8th November.

Mr. Keeling: Will the right hon. Gentleman at least say whether it is intended to have this later collection both in the London postal district and in the towns of Greater London?

Mr. Ness Edwards: Yes, Sir; that is the intention and the details are being worked out in the various localities now.

Christmas Mails (Malaya)

Mr. Gammans: asked the Postmaster-General what was the normal date on which letters and parcels delivered by

sea mail to Malaya had to be posted before the war in this country in order to arrive in time for Christmas; and what are the comparative dates to-day.

Mr. Ness Edwards: The comparable dates in 1938 and this year for the all-sea route are 12th and 8th November respectively, but in 1938 letters were sent by air under the Empire Air Mail Scheme and could be posted up to 2nd December.

Supervising Officers (Pay)

Mr. Watkinson: asked the Postmaster-General if he is now in a position to make a statement on the result of the appeal by the Federation of Post Office Supervising Officers for improved pay.

Mr. Ness Edwards: I have nothing to add to the reply I gave to the hon. Member on 25th October.

Mr. Watkinson: In view of the fact that the differential has completely disappeared from this class, can nothing be done to speed up the decision?

Mr. Ness Edwards: It is a matter for arbitration and I must not interfere.

Oral Answers to Questions — BROADCASTING

Airmet Service

Surgeon Lieut.-Commander Bennett: asked the Postmaster-General what progress has been achieved towards the restitution of the Airmet system of broadcasts.

Mr. Bishop: asked the Postmaster-General if he will now make a further statement about the possibility of restoring the Airmet broadcast service.

Brigadier Medlicott: asked the Postmaster-General if he is aware of the continued disappointment amongst farmers, fishermen, airmen and civil engineers by the suspension of the Airmet broadcasts; and what plans he has in hand for restoring this service.

Mr. Ness Edwards: I am aware that the Airmet service was of value to various sections of the community who are anxious to see the facilities restored. I regret, however, that as stated in my reply to the hon. Member for Stratford (Mr. Profumo) on 18th October, it has not been found practicable to make any broadcasting frequency available for the restoration of the Airmet service.
The possibility of improving the weather information available to the public is being considered in conjunction with other departments and the B.B.C., and I understand that some amplification of the B.B.C. weather forecasts will be introduced shortly.

Surgeon Lieut.-Commander Bennett: In view of the need for more frequent weather bulletins, has the right hon. Gentleman considered either the possibility of getting a wave-length on, say, the 49 metre band or, in view of infringement of the agreement by Russia, of using some of the Russian wavelengths?

Mr. Ness Edwards: The new weather broadcast will commence next Sunday, and I should like hon. Members to consider the result of that. Perhaps they might raise the matter again if it is not satisfactory.

Interference

Mr. Spearman: asked the Postmaster-General if he is aware that interference from the British Broadcasting Corporation's European Service is spoiling reception of the Light Programme in the Scarborough area; and what steps he will take to remedy this.

Mr. Ness Edwards: The B.B.C. has had no evidence of any persistent interference from its transmissions to Europe with reception in the Scarborough area of the Light Programme on 1500 metres, 200 kc/s., the wavelength intended to serve this area. There has, however, been some evidence of occasional interference, and the B.B.C. is investigating the matter. If the hon. Member has any specific information about the interference, I should be glad to have it.

Mr. Spearman: Is the Postmaster-General aware that licence holders in the Scarborough area feel they are not getting value for their money, and that he may find they are very reluctant to renew their licences unless he can improve these services?

Mr. Spearman: asked the Postmaster-General if he is aware that the persistent interference, believed to be from Russia or Spain, experienced in the Yorkshire coastal area, is ruining reception on the North Regional Programme; and what steps he is taking to remedy this.

Mr. Ness Edwards: I am aware of this interference, and I have made representations to the Administrations concerned.

Mr. Spearman: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that, although there was a temporary improvement, it is now worse than ever, and that last night there was keen and rather successful competition with the nine o'clock news by a choir from abroad? Will he consider establishing a subsidiary relay station in the area?

Mr. Ness Edwards: We have got rid of the Spanish interference, but I am afraid we now have renewed Russian activity. We have written to the Russians, drawing their attention to this, and we shall have to consider other steps.

Mr. Spearman: Will the Minister reply to my question—whether he will consider establishing a subsidiary station?

Brigadier Medlicott: Is the Minister aware that these difficulties are not confined to the North-East coast but are very noticeable on the coast of Norfolk and Suffolk, where they have persisted for some time? Will he do all he can to help us?

Mr. Ness Edwards: We are doing all we can.

Mr. Wood: asked the Postmaster-General if his attention has been drawn to interference with British Broadcasting Corporation's programmes on the North-East coast of England; and what steps he proposes to take to correct this.

Mr. Ness Edwards: I understand from the B.B.C. that the Light and Third Programmes should, generally, be received free from interference. The Northern Home Service is unfortunately subject to interference from Spanish and Russian transmitters, and I have made representations to those Administrations.

Mr. Wood: If the Minister's representations are not successful then, in view of the inaudibility of many of these programmes, will he seriously consider reducing the cost of licences when they come to be renewed?

Mr. Hargreaves: Is it not true that my right hon. Friend has had similar complaints from licence holders in Carlisle, and will he also look into that matter?

Aircraft and Shipping (Distress Signals)

Mr. Walter Fletcher: asked the Postmaster-General why he declined the offer of the Radio Society of Great Britain to assist in listening for aircraft or shipping in distress, in view of the assistance received from amateur radio operators during the search for the trawler "Milford Viscount," and when this assistance would be at no cost to the public.

Mr. Ness Edwards: The standing arrangements for the reception in the United Kingdom of signals from ships and aircraft in distress at sea are generally found to be adequate. Where it is considered advisable exceptionally to augment these arrangements, the assistance of the public, including amateur radio operators belonging to the Radio Society of Great Britain, will be invited.

Mr. Fletcher: Does not the Minister think that at this time it would be a wise thing to get going a system which might be very useful later? In view of the signal service which is rendered by this society, would he give them more encouragement?

Mr. Ness Edwards: This matter arose out of the loss of the "Milford Viscount." That is the subject of inquiry at present, and I think I ought not to say anything about the use of amateurs until that inquiry has been completed. There is a lot of confusion, and if these amateurs are to assist us, it must be under very strict supervision.

B.B.C. Staff (Aliens)

Sir Waldron Smithers: asked the Postmaster-General how many persons employed by the British Broadcasting Corporation are aliens.

Mr. Ness Edwards: A total of 318 aliens are in temporary employment by the British Broadcasting Corporation.

Sir W. Smithers: In view of that very serious statement, the well-known Communist technique of infiltration and the enormous power for good or ill of the B.B.C., will the right hon. Gentleman, in the national interest, keep the personnel and the material broadcast under very close review?

Mr. Ness Edwards: The hon. Gentleman can be assured that that is being done.

Mr. John E. Haire: Is it not a fact that most of these aliens were employed by the B.B.C. during the war and gave most loyal service?

Mr. Ness Edwards: That is certainly so in the majority of cases.

Oral Answers to Questions — TELEVISION

Wales

Mr. David Thomas: asked the Postmaster-General what progress has been made by the British Broadcasting Corporation in its negotiations for a new site for the Cardiff television station; and what is the location of the new site.

Mr. Ness Edwards: The B.B.C. is awaiting the agreement of the local authority before completing negotiations for the acquisition of the new site, which is on St. Lythan's Downs, near Wenvoe.

Mr. George Thomas: May I ask the Postmaster-General whether it is likely that the rural district council will hold up this development much longer?

Mr. Ness Edwards: I am hoping to get their co-operation in this matter, because we have wasted three months on this.

Mr. Llewellyn: Is it not a fact that the rural district council are not holding this up, but that the Air Ministry caused a very long delay, and that they—not the rural district council—are responsible for holding it up?

Mr. Ness Edwards: No, Sir. The St. Nicholas site was cleared with the Air Ministry very quickly. It was the rural district council which stopped it there.

Scotland

Mr. John MacLeod: asked the Postmaster-General when it is proposed to extend television to cover the extreme North of Scotland.

Mr. Ness Edwards: The present programme provides for a station to be installed at Aberdeen. Until experience is obtained of the range of this station, it will not be possible to determine what further steps should be taken to extend television coverage.

Mr. MacLeod: Could the Minister say what range he expects this station to have?

Mr. Ness Edwards: In view of the peculiar topography of Scotland, it is very difficult to forecast.

Mr. Llewellyn: Could the Postmaster-General say whether some small rural district council is holding up this development?

Mr. Ness Edwards: No. In Scotland they seem to have more sense.

Mr. Niall Macpherson: While I appreciate the right hon. Gentleman's last remark, may I ask him when the station is to be established in Aberdeen?

Mr. Ness Edwards: That information has been given previously. I have not the information with me at the moment.

Mr. J. MacLeod: asked the Postmaster-General whether the proposed new Scottish television station will have its own studios to enable it to make its own Scottish television.

Mr. Ness Edwards: No, Sir, but it will, however, have outside broadcast facilities for televising Scottish events.

Mr. MacLeod: I think it is a pity, for Scotland could make a contribution. Would the Minister say why it has taken such a long time to put up this station?

Mr. Ness Edwards: The building of a television station is a very complicated and intricate job and one that cannot be done in five minutes.

Oral Answers to Questions — ROYAL AIR FORCE

Accidental Bombing, Malaya

Mr. Niall Macpherson: asked the Secretary of State for Air if he will make a statement regarding the accidental bombing of Utan Simpang estate in Malaya.

The Under-Secretary of State for Air (Mr. Crawley): During a bombing attack on 4th November against an area into which a force of terrorists had been driven, a stick of five bombs was released prematurely and one bomb fell outside the target area near a group of rubber

workers. I am informed that 13 people were killed and 16 injured. My right hon. Friend deeply regrets this unfortunate accident, the causes of which are not fully established, and a full report has been called for.

Mr. N. Macpherson: How far was this place from the actual target? Secondly, what compensation is being given in respect of those who, unfortunately, have been killed?

Mr. Crawley: I cannot say exactly how far it was. That is one of the things which is being investigated. I have not yet got the information on the compensation being paid, but as soon as we have a report I will give the hon. Gentleman full details.

Air Commodore Harvey: Has the hon. Gentleman satisfied himself that bombing is an effective means of clearing up the emergency? Will he consult with the Secretary of State for War to see whether more mortar ammunition could be made available to the troops?

Training Scheme, Canada

Mr. Donner: asked the Secretary of State for Air whether he will reconsider the air training scheme in Canada with a view to its early expansion.

Mr. Crawley: Great importance is attached by the Government to the generous initiative of the Canadian Government in providing training facilities in Canada for a number of pilots and navigators of the R.A.F. Any question of the expansion of this scheme is a matter for further discussion between the two Governments in the light of the defence programmes of the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation countries which are now taking shape, and the hon. Member may be assured that this and other possibilities are under urgent examination.

Mr. Donner: How long will it be before the Under-Secretary will be able to make a statement? Is he aware of the urgent need to expand the scheme, in view of actual and potential commitments?

Mr. Crawley: That obviously depends partly on the response of the Canadian Government.

Surplus Equipment (Sale)

Mr. Bossom: asked the Secretary of State for Air how much the sale of surplus equipment from the Royal Air Force No. 61 Maintenance Unit, Handforth, Cheshire, and No. 35 Maintenance Unit, Bowlee, near Manchester, realised; and how much it is estimated it would cost to replace the articles sold.

Mr. Crawley: The sale realised £51,336. Many of the articles sold will not be replaced. Such replacement as may be required is made in the ordinary course of provisioning and, in consequence, I am not in a position to say how much it would cost.

Mr. Bossom: Could the Under-Secretary explain to the House why Press photographers were not admitted to the sale? It was said that it was for security reasons; yet anybody else could go in, by buying one of these catalogues—one of which I have here—by correspondence, and paying 6d. for it.

Mr. Crawley: I could give a good many reasons why one could let ordinary citizens into a defence area while not letting in people with cameras.

Military Transport

Mr. A. R. W. Low: asked the Secretary of State for Air what arrangements have been made with British Overseas Airways Corporation and British European Airways Corporation, and with charter companies for the transport of Army formations and equipment in an emergency.

Mr. Crawley: The use of the Corporations and charter companies for any emergency airlift in peace-time which was beyond the resources of the R.A.F. would be arranged under normal contract procedure at the time. The use of the Corporations in war is now being discussed with the Ministry of Civil Aviation and the Boards of the Corporations. All the larger charter companies have been given full details of the scheme for forming auxiliary transport squadrons. The first of such squadrons was formed on 1st November.

Mr. Low: But if these aircraft are to be used in an emergency, in peace-time or in war, ought not preparatory arrangements—load tables, for instance

—to be fixed well in advance? Will the hon. Gentleman see that if that has not been done already, it is done as quickly as possible?

Mr. Crawley: The R.A.F. does carry out exercises in loading aircraft, and with aircraft which are either identical with or very similar to aircraft of the Corporations and charter companies.

Mr. George Ward: Is it not a fact that most of the aircraft with which the Corporations and charter companies are now equipped would not be strong enough to carry light tanks or jeeps and heavy equipment of that sort? What preparation is being made for carrying such equipment by military aircraft?

Mr. Crawley: That is another question. There is another similar to that later on, the answer to which will probably answer the hon. Gentleman's point.

Mr. C. I. Orr-Ewing: asked the Secretary of State for Air what progress has been made on the design and development of a rear-loading aircraft for military transport purposes.

Mr. Crawley: The prototype of a military transport aircraft embodying rear-loading has been constructed in this country and is now being used for experimental purposes.

Meteorological Staff

Mr. John McKay: asked the Secretary of State for Air if he is aware that W. J. Stewart with five years' service in the Forces during the war and three years' service in the Meterological Office, now stationed at Pitreavie Castle, Dunfermline, after being established, is now receiving £32 less in basic salary for the same work as before establishment, £5 per year less for irregular hours, £4 per year less for night duties, and his increment date put back from May to January; and if he will attempt to improve this man's position.

Mr. Crawley: Mr. Stewart is receiving the salary and allowances authorised for an established appointment in his grade under regulations which are of general application, and is, of course, now on a pensionable basis. It is not uncommon for a temporary officer to have to suffer a drop in salary on accepting a permanent post as a result of an open competition.

Mr. McKay: Is my hon. Friend aware that this man had five years' service in the Army, that he has an intermediate certificate, that he has done his work very well, that he is now 28 years of age, and that his wages are £5 9s. a week? Does my hon. Friend consider that a really satisfactory wage?

Mr. Crawley: I think my hon. Friend must remember that this man had a perfectly free choice. He could have remained on a temporary basis at a slightly higher salary if he had wanted to, but he chose otherwise.

Mr. J. McKay: asked the Secretary of State for Air what is the number of meteorological assistants to the nearest possible date; and how many assistants voluntarily left the Department during the 12 months preceding the date taken.

Mr. Crawley: The number of civilian meteorological assistants on 31st October, 1950, was 1,236. The number who resigned during the previous 12 months was 155.

Mr. McKay: Does my hon. Friend not think that the tremendous percentage of resignations is an indication that the general conditions obtaining in that Department are not satisfactory?

Mr. Crawley: No, I do not agree with my hon. Friend. The conditions have recently been improved, and the number resigning has been steadily decreasing during the last three years.

Mr. J. McKay: asked the Secretary of State for Air what is the number of married men, to the nearest date, on the meteorological staff; how many of such men are provided with houses by his Department; and what are the prospects for housing these men in the near future.

Mr. Crawley: There are 838 married men on the staff of the Meteorological Office, of whom 22 serving in the U.K. and 40 serving abroad, are housed in official accommodation. Additionally, a house is to be provided for a meteorologist at each of 40 Royal Air Force stations in this country. I should make it clear that meteorological staff, like other civilians, make their own living arrangements, but are eligible, in common with other Air Ministry civilian staffs, for such houses as the Department has at its disposal.

Mr. McKay: Is my hon. Friend aware that if he looks into the whole question of housing for those in this particular Department, he will find that the position is not satisfactory, and not up to the standards of the other Departments of the Civil Service? It is time he made a personal investigation into the matter.

Rescue Operations

Mr. Profumo: asked the Secretary of State for Air to what extent the coast of Britain is covered for air/sea rescue operations.

Mr. Crawley: A number of R.A.F. aircraft are held at readiness to undertake search and rescue operations at any hour of the day or night. They are so stationed as to cover the whole area of the British Isles and sea areas within their range. In addition, arrangements exist under which aircraft of all R.A.F. Commands and the Royal Navy can be called upon to assist in the search, as well as R.A.F. launches and Naval vessels. Civil aircraft, lifeboats and merchant vessels also co-operate.

Mr. Profumo: In view of the importance of this service, has the Under-Secretary considered the possibility of using auxiliaries to supplement the Regular Forces, which could he used to back them up in case of hostilities?

Mr. Crawley: Yes, we are considering that now. We should like to do it, but it has not a very high priority at this time.

Air Commodore Harvey: Is the hon. Gentleman aware that boats of the Royal National Lifeboat Institution are frequently called out on abortive operations? Will he check up on the operations in the Air Sea Rescue Service itself?

601–604 Auxiliary Squadrons (Accommodation)

Mr. Charles Ian Orr-Ewing: asked the Secretary of State for Air what arrangements are being made to house the personnel of 601–604 Auxiliary Squadrons, which were recently moved from Hendon to North Weald, now that their week-end accommodation at North Weald has been taken over by Regular Service personnel.

Mr. Crawley: Adequate accommodation arrangements have been made for the personnel of Nos. 601 and 604 Auxiliary Squadrons. They are comfortably housed in newly decorated brick built barrack blocks.

Mr. Orr-Ewing: Would the hon. Gentleman say when that accommodation was found for them, because last week-end they had to go back to their homes and could not be accommodated on the aerodrome? We do feel that priority should be given to these people who are so important for the fighter defence of this country. We feel that they have not a high enough priority.

Mr. Crawley: My information is entirely contrary to the hon. Gentleman's. I understand that each squadron has two separate barrack rooms available for it, which have not yet been filled at any week-end.

Oral Answers to Questions — CIVIL AVIATION (FOG DISPERSAL APPARATUS)

Air Commodore Harvey: asked the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Civil Aviation, how long it takes for Fog Investigation Dispersal Operation's apparatus at Blackbushe and Manston airports to be brought into operation after a request has been made.

The Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Civil Aviation (Mr. Beswick): It would take a maximum of five minutes from the pilot's initial request to Air Traffic Control to the time the executive order is given. From that point, I am informed that the apparatus at Manston can be fully operational within 30 minutes.
As I informed the hon. Member for Worcester (Mr. G. Ward) on the 8th November, 1950, F.I.D.O. is not now available at Blackbushe.

Air Commodore Harvey: Does the hon. Gentleman mean by that that when a request is made, within 30 minutes the fog dispersal equipment could be operated? Will he say why the equipment at Blackbushe is not available?

Mr. Beswick: The equipment at Blackbushe is not available, because, as I said last week, during the time it was available, with the attendant expense, it was

never required by any aircraft landing. In our view, one installation at Manston is sufficient. In reply to the first part of the supplementary question, I meant what I said, that within a total of 35 minutes, this apparatus can be fully operational.

Mr. Geoffrey Lloyd: Can the hon. Gentleman say whether Manston aerodrome is equipped with a blind approach system to work in co-operation with F.I.D.O.?

Mr. Beswick: Yes, Sir.

Oral Answers to Questions — ARMED FORCES

National Service Men (Pay)

Mr. Black: asked the Minister of Defence whether he will consider bringing proposals before Parliament whereby National Service men engaged in areas of active service will receive similar pay and allowances to Regular members of His Majesty's Forces.

The Minister of Defence (Mr. Shinwell): I would refer the hon. Member to the reply which I gave to the hon. Member for Solihull (Mr. M. Lindsay) on 19th September.

Mr. Black: Will the right hon. Gentleman not take into consideration the fact that there is a strong feeling amongst Service personnel and the general public that equal risks and equal service should carry equal pay and equal allowances?

Mr. Shinwell: All relevant considerations were taken into account when this matter was decided, and I think there was some discussion in the House.

Captain Ryder: Are we not to assume that when a man is sent to an area on active service he is regarded as being a trained and qualified fighting man? Ought he not, therefore, to receive a trained man's rates of pay?

Mr. Shinwell: That is not the only factor that has to be considered.

Extended Service

Mr. Wood: asked the Minister of Defence by what means it is hoped to widen the field of employment of older members of His Majesty's Forces.

Mr. Shinwell: The revised R.A.F. trade structure which comes into effect on 1st January next will make it possible for a substantial proportion of airmen to continue to serve, if they wish, up to the age of 55. The other two Services are examining the possibility of extending Service careers to a later age.

Oral Answers to Questions — >WESTERN DEFENCE

Mr. W. Fletcher: asked the Minister of Defence what proposals he is making in conjunction with the other powers in the planning of the defence of Western Europe that adequate stocks of strategic materials are held; and whether such stocks are to be held centrally or by individual countries.

Mr. Shinwell: The North Atlantic Council have instructed the Council Deputies to consider how the problem of strategic materials can best be dealt with, and the Council deputies have the matter under consideration.

Mr. W. Fletcher: Could the Minister say whether, since this matter was discussed in the debate here two months ago, there has been any real progress in new methods or in accumulating a greater proportion of stocks?

Mr. Shinwell: I should not care to say whether any real progress has been made. The matter is before the deputies. They are the appropriate body to deal with this.

Mr. Gerald Williams: Will the right hon. Gentleman remember that newsprint is a strategic material, and that if supplies are cut off from Scandinavia in a future war, and if there is no newsprint, the morale of the people will fall to nil?

Mr. Shinwell: I cannot imagine what that question has to do with the Ministry of Defence.

Mr. Donner: asked the Minister of Defence whether he will make a statement on the Atlantic Pact defence talks at Washington.

Mr. Shinwell: As my reply is rather long I will, with permission, make a statement at the end of Questions.

Mr. C. I. Orr-Ewing: asked the Minister of Defence what proposals have

been received by His Majesty's Government from the French Government for the provision of air forces for their proposed European force; and whether it has been decided who will provide these squadrons.

Mr. Shinwell: The French Government have made no proposals to His Majesty's Government on this subject.

Mr. Orr-Ewing: Will the right hon. Gentleman state at the end of his statement on his report on the Washington talks what an army can do without an air force? It seems to us a little nebulous to make any statement without discussing the air side which is necessary to protect an army.

Mr. Shinwell: I do not know whether I am to include it in my statement at the end of Questions, but I think that we all have a fair grasp of the obvious.

Oral Answers to Questions — HOME GUARD AND CIVIL DEFENCE

Mr. Sidney Marshall: asked the Minister of Defence when he will be in a position to make a statement about the resuscitation of the Home Guard.

Lieut.-Colonel Sir Thomas Moore: On a point of order. Does not the word "resuscitation" mean bringing back from death? May I point out that the Home Guard are by no means all dead?

Mr. Speaker: I am not responsible for this Question. The hon. and gallant Member should put his query to the hon. Member who put down the Question, and not to me.

Mr. Shinwell: The Government have decided that a Home Guard should be raised on a part-time basis in a future emergency. The Home Guard will not be enrolled before an actual emergency arises, but planning measures are being put in hand at once, including the appointment of a Home Guard Adviser in each Army Command at home, which will ensure that a substantial force can be enrolled, organised and armed within a few weeks of the order to proceed.
The Home Guard will form part of the Armed Forces of the Crown, and its functions will be broadly similar to those which the Home Guard performed so


admirably in the recent war. They will be concerned mainly with supporting the Regular Forces by relieving them of certain subsidiary tasks, and with giving assistance to the civil authorities in a wide range of duties. The Home Guard will be raised and operated on a Territorial basis, and will be administered by the War Office through the medium of Territorial and Auxiliary Forces Associations. Command will be exercised through normal Service channels.
The Government recognise that the duties which may have to be performed by part-time services in a future emergency cannot accurately be estimated in advance, so as to enable a precise allocation of part-time manpower to be made between Civil Defence and the Home Guard. The plans for each Service will, therefore, have to be made with a considerable degree of elasticity.
In the meantime, the Government desire to make it plain that no one should refrain from volunteering now for part-time work in the Civil Defence services or in the Special Constabulary on the ground that he might more suitably serve later on in the Home Guard. The training which potential Home Guard members would receive by joining Civil Defence services or the Special Constabulary would be of considerable value if they should later wish to join, and can be accepted for, the Home Guard on its formation.

Mr. Marshall: Will the Minister make it quite plain that those who wish to join the Home Guard and who meanwhile engage themselves in Civil Defence duties will not be prejudiced in their chance of joining the Home Guard immediately it is resuscitated?

Mr. Shinwell: I thought that that was the sense of what I said.

Mr. Eden: I think that the right hon. Gentleman knows that there is an important point here. Many men would prefer to join the Home Guard rather than any other organisation. Is there any undertaking—I could not quite follow the statement—that in the meanwhile, if they do join the Civil Defence Service and the Home Guard is then

constituted, they can transfer to the Home Guard?

Mr. Shinwell: Yes, Sir. That is the intention. Anyone who wishes may transfer from Civil Defence to the Home Guard, provided that there is a place in the establishment. I imagine that no difficulty will arise.

Mr. C. I. Orr-Ewing: Will the right hon. Gentleman say whether the preliminary plans to which he referred include the checking of addresses and the availability and the health of potential members?

Mr. Shinwell: Whether it is intended to go into all those details I cannot say, but I imagine that some of them will have to be dealt with.

Sir Ian Fraser: Would it not appear from what the right hon. Gentleman has said that this is not a plan for the Home Guard at all? It is merely a plan for an officer in each command to advise, which presumably he is already doing, and unless the right hon. Gentleman will enrol men, either through the Government or voluntarily through the British Legion or in some other way, he will not get the men, because they will all be going to other jobs.

Mr. Shinwell: We think not. The fact is that the War Office, among other things, are proposing at once to work on the requirements of equipment and so on, and the command officer who is to be appointed in each of the home commands will be entrusted with the task of making the necessary plans.

Brigadier Prior-Palmer: Will the right hon. Gentleman reconsider the implication of what he has just said? Surely there is nothing more calculated to wreck the organisation of Civil Defence than the sudden exit of large numbers of men, should an emergency arise.

Mr. Shinwell: We think not. At any rate, first things come first. It is not intended—and we have given the matter very careful consideration—that the Home Guard should be raised before an emergency. On the other hand, we think that it is very desirable that the Civil Defence organisation should be in active preparation.

Oral Answers to Questions — FOOD SUPPLIES

Warehouse, Grimsby (Building Licence)

Mr. Osborne: asked the Minister of Food why he is not prepared to support the application for a licence for the completion of the work on the warehouse in Abbey Road, Grimsby, to Messrs. T. Wilkinson and Sons, Builders, Cleethorpes, when the whole steel work and about half the brick work have been completed for about three years, and is deteriorating owing to long exposure, and since all the roofing materials required are already on the site and are paid for and no other materials are required, and in view of the considerable unemployment in the district, if he will reverse his decision.

The Minister of Food (Mr. Maurice Webb): I am arranging for this case to be re-examined and will let the hon. Member know the result as soon as possible.

Mr. Osborne: I am much obliged to the right hon. Gentleman, but will he explain why he has taken so long and why there has had to be so many Parliamentary Questions before we got this sensible decision?

Catering Establishments (Bacon)

Mr. Black: asked the Minister of Food whether, in the interests of increased food production, he will permit catering establishments which keep pigs fed on their own swill to retain the resulting bacon for their visitors.

Mr. Webb: As I explained in my reply to the hon. Member for Penrith (Mr. Scott) on 14th June, in deciding these matters I have to take into account the need to share our supplies of pork and bacon fairly over the whole population, and the interests of domestic consumers as well as catering establishments. At present I do not think that a change in the arrangements would be justified.

Mr. Black: Will not the right hon. Gentleman be prepared to reconsider this matter, because the concession for which we are asking would contribute to food production and would do harm to nobody?

Mr. Webb: These people have a concession now. They have extra bacon which other people do not have. At a time when the bacon ration has had to be reduced, I do not feel that I would be justified in removing all the limitations on the serving of bacon in catering establishments.

Rations (Statistics)

Mr. Black: asked the Minister of Food what percentages of the total rations to which the public is entitled are actually purchased by the public in the various foodstuffs, respectively, which are still subject to rationing.

Mr. Webb: Our estimates are: meat, tea and sugar, 100 per cent.; bacon and butter, 98 per cent.; chocolate and sugar confectionery, 96 per cent.; cheese, 93 per cent.; cooking fats, 88 per cent.; and margarine 86 per cent.

Ewe Mutton

Mr. Bossom: asked the Minister of Food whether he is aware that in a number of instances butchers refused to accept ewe mutton due to its unsatisfactory quality; that they thereby had to forego the value of this ration meat and cut down the ration of their customers; and if he will stop issuing ewe mutton for distribution on the ration.

Mr. Webb: I know that some butchers have occasionally refused imported ewe mutton, but this has not affected consumers' rations, since, if a butcher is unable to meet his customers' rations out of his stock, we can always arrange for them to be supplied by other butchers. I explained to the hon. Member on 25th October that if a butcher is dissatisfied with the quality of his meat and his appeal to the district meat agent is upheld, a replacement will be made; but the present supplies do not enable us to remove ewe mutton from the ration.

Mr. Bossom: Would the Minister give an assurance that any butchers who refuse this ewe mutton in the future will be able to get other rations for their customers?

Sir H. Williams: Why are there more ewes about now than there were in the days of Tory misrule?

Condemned Bacon

Mr. Osborne: asked the Minister of Food how much imported bacon has been condemned as unfit for human consumption in the last 12 months; how much has been sent to the soap-makers; and principally from what countries did it come.

Mr. Webb: During the year ending 31st October we distributed about 266,000 tons of imported bacon of which 119 tons eight cwts., or 0.05 per cent. was condemned as unfit for human consumption. Most of this condemned bacon was used for industrial manufacture, but I cannot say how much was used for soap making, nor from what particular countries it came.

Mr. Osborne: Is the Minister satisfied that, although the quantity which is condemned is small, no deterioration of the bacon is taking place in the warehouses?

Mr. Webb: One can never be satisfied, but I should have thought that the figures that I have given were quite reassuring.

Exhibits, Smithfield Show (Price)

Mr. Baldwin: asked the Minister of Food whether he is aware that beef exhibited in the carcass competitions at Smithfield Show are paid for at casualty rate resulting in a loss to exhibitors of 1d. per lb.; and whether he will give instructions that this prime beef should be paid for at the full rate.

Mr. Webb: The hon. Member's information is not quite in line with the facts. Last year cattle entered for the carcass competition were paid for on the basis of their dead weight—in other words the actual rather than the estimated carcass weight. This procedure, which is the only practicable one in the circumstances, will. I believe, be adopted again next year.

Mr. Baldwin: Would the Minister check his information and make sure that he is accurate, because the information which I have from Smithfield is, in fact, that these carcasses, judged the best in the world, are paid for at casualty rates?

Mr. Webb: As the hon. Gentleman knows—he has spoken to me about this and I have gone into it in great detail—I am satisfied that my information is correct.

Mr. Baldwin: asked the Minister of Food whether he is aware that under the present regulations beef produced from animals exhibited at the Smithfield Show are paid for on the basis of live weight grade and not on actual dead weight, resulting in a loss to exhibitors at the 1949 show of about 2,000 lb. weight of meat, and whether he will alter these regulations so as to permit payment for actual carcass weight.

Mr. Webb: These cattle are graded and paid for in exactly the same way as those we buy at collecting centres throughout the country. Our top grade includes all animals with an estimated killing-out percentage of 59 per cent. and over. If we fixed separate prices for any higher grade it would tend to encourage the production of over-fat animals not suitable for the retail trade and I am not prepared to alter the existing arrangements. After all, our main purpose must be, at this stage to improve the quality of meat for eating.

Mr. Baldwin: Is the Minister aware that the exhibitors at this show are not asking to be paid for fat? They are quite prepared to have the fat trimmed. All that they are asking for is that they should be paid for prime beef at the right price and not be robbed of 2,000 lb. weight of meat which the Ministry of Food take from them.

Mr. Webb: I am aware of that fact. My advice is that if we altered the grade we would be encouraging the production of animals for fat and not for meat.

Mr. Charles Williams: Has not the object of the Smithfield Show always been to raise the quality, and has not it done so most successfully, long before we had any Minister of Food?

Cattle (Slaughtering Arrangements)

Lieut.-Colonel Sir Thomas Moore: asked the Minister of Food whether in view of the increasing numbers of cattle awaiting slaughter and the congestion that results, with its consequent suffering to the animals, he will arrange for more slaughter houses to be built without delay.

Mr. Webb: I would refer the hon. and gallant Member to the reply I gave to the hon. Member for Bodmin (Mr. D. Marshall) on Monday, 6th November.

Sir T. Moore: While not having access to that answer, as no doubt the Minister has—which is something to which I have drawn attention before—may I ask the right hon. Gentleman to bear in mind that there are now only 600 slaughterhouses compared with 16,000 before the war? Therefore, how can there not be congestion and consequent suffering? Will he remove some of the restrictions that he has imposed?

Mr. Webb: There were not 16,000 slaughterhouses before the war, but 12,000, and some of these backyard slaughterhouses just did not bear examination.

Mr. Assheton: Will the right hon. Gentleman bear in mind that a great deal of suffering is caused to animals by their having to travel long distances? Will he do his best to alleviate the situation?

Mr. Webb: That is another question, but I am looking into it.

Mr. Harrison: Before my right hon. Friend gives permission for the building of any more slaughterhouses, will he take a look at some of the slaughterhouses that were used prior to and in the early part of the war?

Sir W. Smithers: asked the Minister of Food if he has considered particulars which have been sent to him concerning cruelty to animals and waste due to slaughtering of beasts under Government control; and if he will restore the right to butchers to do their own slaughtering.

Mr. Webb: I am having inquiries made about the information which the hon. Member has sent to me and will write to him as soon as possible, but I cannot accept the implication in his Question. On future slaughterhouse policy, I would refer the hon. Member to my reply to the hon. Member for Bodmin (Mr. D Marshall) on 6th November.

Sir W. Smithers: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that, due to Government control of a specialised industry, the waste of money and good food is appalling? Is he also aware that a butcher told me last week that he was no longer a butcher but a "cutter-up" of meat for the Government, and that he would like to get his knife into the Minister of Food?

Groundnut Scheme

Mr. W. Fletcher: asked the Minister of Food if he is yet in a position to make a statement on the future of the groundnut scheme.

Mr. Webb: I expect to receive the revised plan from the Corporation shortly, and, as soon as the Government have considered it, I will publish a White Paper.

Mr. W. Fletcher: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that a very long time has elapsed since he came into office and took this matter in hand? Is he further aware that the public, who are most anxious about this point, should be informed about the Government's policy in regard to the groundnut scheme at a very early date?

Mr. Webb: I do not think I have been backward in giving information about the situation. I promised that a White Paper would be ready at about the end of November. We shall probably be about two weeks late, but I do not think that is too bad.

Mr. Frederic Harris: Is it not a fact that the groundnut scheme has no future, although, unfortunately, it has a past?

Mr. Speaker: That is not a question asking for information.

Meat Grading (Appeals)

Sir W. Smithers: asked the Minister of Food to whom a butcher may appeal concerning the grading and quality of the meat supplied to him.

Mr. Webb: To his district meat agent, who is, of course, a practical butcher.

Sir W. Smithers: Is the Minister aware that many butchers have told me it is no good appealing because there is such a delay in getting a further supply, and that there is a danger of victimisation?

Mr. Webb: That is not the general opinion of the butchering trade.

Milk (Delivery Charge)

Mr. Turton: asked the Minister of Food if he will make a detailed statement as to the extent to which the Control and Maximum Prices Order permits the addition of a reasonable delivery charge to


the price of milk delivered in thinly-populated areas; and, in particular, whether such provision covers milk sold under the National Milk Scheme.

Mr. Webb: Yes, Sir. The position is as follows: The appropriate order says that no person may make an unreasonable charge in connection with the sale of milk. By implication, therefore, a reasonable charge may be made to cover exceptional costs incurred in the retail delivery of milk in thinly-populated areas, whether the milk is provided under the Welfare Foods Service or otherwise. The question of what constitutes a "reasonable charge" is one for interpretation by the courts.

Mr. Turton: Does that mean that the Minister is prepared to pay a higher charge for milk supplied under the National Milk Scheme in the rural areas?

Mr. Webb: It means that I could not possibly fix the charge for delivery for every district in the country; but it is open for the person concerned to fix his own charge, if it is a reasonable one and comes within the order.

Mr. Turton: Is the right hon. Gentleman prepared to consider paying a higher charge for the milk supplied under the National Milk Scheme?

Poultry and Game (Prices)

Mr. Coldrick: asked the Minister of Food if he will state the price of poultry and game at Christmas, 1949, and for the present period.

Mr. Webb: The controlled maximum retail prices of dressed poultry at Christmas, 1949, were: 4s. a lb. for poultry other than turkeys and poussins, 5s. 3d. a lb. for home-produced turkeys, 4s. 4d. a lb. for imported turkeys and 4s. 9d. a bird for poussins. The price of game birds was not controlled. On a free market, there are now substantial variations in price, from day to day, in different parts of the country, and according to quality, so that it would be misleading to give any figures; but prices are generally higher than last year.

Mr. Coldrick: Is my right hon. Friend aware of the bitter resentment on the part of a large number of consumers at the prices now being charged, and will

he consider importing sufficient quantities in order to break the racket in which home producers are now indulging?

Mr. Webb: I am aware of that dissatisfaction and disquiet. As I said a day or two ago, I am looking into the question of the possibility of further importations.

Mr. Marlowe: In view of the fact that the increase is largely caused by scarcity, will the Minister explain what he meant at his Press conference the other day when he said that turkeys were not to be imported from Hungary for political reasons? What are these political reasons?

Christmas Allowances

Mr. Janner: asked the Minister of Food whether, in making his statement about food bonuses for Christmas, he will take into account the need of housewives for extra eggs, or egg powder, for use for Christmas puddings and cakes.

Mr. Webb: I should very much like to be able to do this, but I am afraid it is not possible.

Mrs. Jean Mann: While recognising that it is not perhaps possible to have the tinned eggs, is it not possible to have a distribution to housewives of the egg powder used by confectioners and bakers?

Mr. Webb: That is an interesting question, and we have looked into it. I am afraid that the powder would be of such poor quality and would cause so many Questions in the House that we dare not face it.

Gambian Poultry and Eggs

Mr. Crouch: asked the Minister of Food what are the number of cases of eggs which have been received from Gambia during the last six months; the number of laying hens in Gambia; and the number of dead poultry that have been imported from that source.

Mr. Webb: We have received 107 cases of eggs, but have no information about the present number of laying hens in Gambia. Dead poultry from Gambia is imported, privately, under licence. Since 1st June my Department has supported one application for a licence to import 30 tons.

Mr. Crouch: Is the Minister aware that an import of 107 cases is not a very large large amount to contribute towards the weekly egg ration?

Mr. Webb: We have undertaken and contracted to buy the export surplus of eggs from Gambia for three years, as from 1st July. It is up to them, and up to the hens to lay them.

Captain Duncan: How can these Gambian eggs be identified?

Bacon Exports

Mr. Crouch: asked the Minister of Food why he has decided to export bacon to the United States of America, when there is not sufficient bacon in this country to meet our own needs.

Mr. Webb: We export only speciality products of high dollar-earning value; and the quantity is quite negligible in relation to our ration needs. Export licences issued so far have covered only 48 cwt. of canned ham.

Mr. Crouch: Can the Minister tell us why, on 18th September, he sent a letter to the Shaftesbury Rural District Council asking them to appoint Lieut.-Colonel Green to be the meat inspector at the Dorset Bacon Company factory where about 300 pigs are killed a week?

Mr. Webb: I have not the foggiest idea what that is all about. Perhaps the hon. Member will write to me.

Cattle and Sheep (Grading)

Mr. Crouch: asked the Minister of Food what is the number of Grade A and Grade B fat cattle and sheep purchased at grading centres in the last six months; and the number of Grade A and Grade B beef and mutton carcasses sold during the last six months.

Mr. Webb: During the six months ended 30th September, 725,640 cattle were purchased at collecting centres in Great Britain in the grades "Special" and "A," whilst 199,364 were purchased in the live grades "B." In the same period 224,744 tons of beef representing approximately 899,096 cattle (including those received alive or in the form of fresh meat from Eire and Northern Ireland) were sold as "A" quality and 58,987 tons representing approximately 245,948 cattle were sold as "B" quality. Similar

figures are not available for sheep which are not purchased alive in the grades "Special," "A" or "B."
All classes of cattle purchased at collecting centres can qualify for the appropriate live grade "A" but, clearly, a grade "A" cow would not be expected to produce the same quality carcass as a grade "A" steer or heifer. Similarly, a ewe graded in its highest category would tot be expected to provide the same quality carcass as a lamb similarly graded. The qualifying killing out percentage for the same grade varies with the class of animal, e.g., a cow qualifies for the live grade "A" at a lower killing out percentage than a heifer. Rates of payment per live hundredweight for a cow graded "A" are suitably less than for a heifer graded "A." Sheep fall into a great number of live grades, the current price schedule shows. During the six months ended 29th September. 47,339 tons of home-killed mutton and lamb were issued as first quality and 10,431 tons as second quality.

Festival of Britain (Extra Rations)

Mr. Boyd-Carpenter: asked the Minister of Food what extra rations, and subject to what conditions, he intends to issue to persons entertaining in their homes visitors to the Festival of Britain.

Mr. Webb: Householders in London who provide accommodation, approved by the British Travel and Holidays Association, during the Festival of Britain will be enabled to provide meals, in the same way as hotels for guests who stay for short periods. Guests who stay five nights or more will have to bring their own ration cards in the usual way. For those staying for shorter periods, householders will get ration cards in proportion to the number of meals served.

Mr. Boyd-Carpenter: Can the right hon. Gentleman say how this concession will be restricted to visitors to this particular festival?

Mr. Webb: One of the restrictions for the moment is that the plan applies only to London. The plan has been worked out in consultation with Sir Alexander Maxwell, and we are satisfied that we have made a very helpful arrangement in the circumstances.

Mr. Turton: Why should not this scheme be extended over the rest of the country where the Festival of Britain is taking place?

Mr. Webb: We are satisfied that in most areas the hotel accommodation will be ample, but, if it is not, we shall consider extending the scheme.

Lieut.-Commander Gurney Braithwaite: What happens if the visitors give the Festival a miss after their arrival and go to cricket matches?

Mr. Webb: The same as happens to the hon. and gallant Member and myself when we go to cricket matches; they will get an extra meal on the side.

Mr. Churchill: Is the appointment of any extra staff involved in this?

Mr. Webb: No, Sir. I think we can look after this with our existing staff.

Mr. Churchill: Can the right hon. Gentleman remember what are the numbers of the existing staff?

Mr. Webb: There are 5,000 less than there were six months ago.

WESTERN EUROPE DEFENCE (GERMANY)

At the end of Questions—

Mr. Shinwell: With permission, I should like to answer Question 48.
The House will have seen the communiqué which was issued after the meeting of the North Atlantic Defence Committee in Washington on 31st October, and will be aware that it was unfortunately not possible for us to reach unanimous agreement upon all the items on the agenda.
I would emphasise at once, however, that on many important issues there was agreement between all members of the Defence Committee. For example, we were all agreed in principle on the desirability of the early creation of an integrated force under a Supreme Commander, which will provide the most effective means of ensuring the defence of Western Europe, including Western Germany; we all paid tribute to the decision of the United States Government to participate in this integrated force when it is formed, and to station substantial forces in Europe in peace time,

over and above their present Occupation Forces in Germany; we all recognised the importance of Germany making some contribution to the common defence of the West, and we were all firmly of the opinion that adequate safeguards must be devised to prevent a resurgence of German militarism.
It is on the nature of the contribution which Germany could best make to the common defence of Europe that we have not yet reached agreement. Following the meeting of the North Atlantic Council in New York in September, we considered the problem on the basis of the American proposal for the incorporation into the integrated force of German units up to a division in strength.
In the view of His Majesty's Government the American proposal, to which I have referred, would have been a sound basis for discussion at the North Atlantic Defence Committee. A few days before the meeting, however, the French Prime Minister announced an alternative plan which, subject to the conclusion of certain political agreements, contemplated the creation of German units within the framework of a European Army. Although we were, of course, prepared to give this French plan an objective study, and welcomed the recognition in the French plan of the necessity to use German forces for the defence of the West, the plan seemed to us to raise a number of far-reaching political decisions which the countries concerned might not, at this stage, be ready to make.
Consideration of the French plan would therefore inevitably, in the view of His Majesty's Government, involve great delay in setting up the integrated force under the Supreme Commander, which all the North Atlantic countries regard as the next step to be taken in building up the defence of Western Europe.
Our discussions in Washington made it clear that the political and military issues involved were too complex for immediate decision, and that further consideration of the whole problem was necessary before the difficulties which had arisen could be resolved. In our view, the problem is primarily a military one, but as the French plan raised a number of difficult political questions, it was decided by the Defence Committee to refer the matter both to the Council


Deputies and to the Military Committee for further study. These two committees will report back to an adjourned meeting of the Defence Committee, which it is hoped will be held early next month.

Mr. Donner: Has the right hon. Gentleman any fresh proposals in mind to avoid further delays, which must inevitably endanger the security of Western Europe?

Mr. Shinwell: Until this matter of German participation in the defence of the West under either of the plans is resolved we cannot make further progress, but I have every reason to believe that the plan agreed upon in principle at Washington—the medium-termed defence plan—can certainly be proceeded with so far as the British contribution is concerned.

Mr. Emrys Hughes: Can the right hon. Gentleman assure us that he will oppose conscription of the Germans against their will, and that he will also oppose the construction of a German Army under old ex-Nazi officers; and will he tell us what his attitude is to a tactical air force for Germany and any proposal for an increase in the German Navy?

Mr. Shinwell: It is extremely unlikely that we should proceed with any proposal without consultation first of all with the German Government and obtaining their consent. Obviously we could not impose upon them any form of conscription or any organisation for the build-up of forces in Germany without agreement. As regards the raising of ex-Nazi officered forces, that is a matter which obviously has to be taken into consideration. As regards the last part of the supplementary question, I do not think that there is any problem on this matter.

Mr. Boothby: Does not the right hon. Gentleman think that it will be better to try to reach a political settlement with Western Germany—in other words, to make peace with her—before attempting to make any detailed military arrangements?

Mr. Shinwell: That is a matter which is, no doubt, under consideration.

Mr. Rhys Davies: How will my right hon. Friend prevent German military resurgence if he is to put thousands of Germans into military uniform?

Mr. Shinwell: I think it depends very largely on the nature of the organisation to be created; but I must make it abundantly clear to hon. Members on both sides of the House that, whichever plan is agreed upon ultimately, I doubt whether British public opinion, French public opinion or American public opinion would tolerate a situation in which British, American and French soldiers and airmen were engaged in the defence of German territory without some contribution from the German people.

Colonel J. R. H. Hutchison: To whom is it proposed that the Supreme Commander shall be responsible and from whom will he get his orders?

Mr. Shinwell: The Supreme Commander would, of course, be appointed under the supervision of the North Atlantic Council.

Mr. Leslie Hale: In view of the fact that the rearming of Germany marks a very grave change in national policy, will my right hon. Friend give an undertaking that the House will have an opportunity of discussing the matter before any final decision is taken?

Mr. Shinwell: Matters relating to debates are not for me but for the Leader of the House.

Mr. Martin Lindsay: Is not the greatest safeguard against a resurgence of German militarism the vulnerability of the whole of German heavy industry to atomic bombing in modern warfare, and, therefore, is not the hesitancy of the British and French Governments very largely unnecessary?

Mr. Shinwell: I do not think we should look so far ahead.

Mr. Harold Davies: Is there any reason why my right hon. Friend could not have provided the House with a White Paper so that we might have had time to study this and then perhaps had a debate on the subject? Will he in future try to provide hon. Members with a White Paper after important visits and discussions like this?

Mr. Shinwell: It would obviously be premature to furnish the House with a White Paper until these discussionse were completed. We must have the principle


considered and dealt with and the problem resolved before we are in a position to furnish full information to hon. Members.

Mr. Nigel Davies: Is the right hon. Gentleman prepared to propose and sponsor the sending of an invitation to Spain to join the Atlantic Defence Pact in view of the fact that Spain probably has the strongest army in Western Europe?

Mr. Shinwell: I have been asked a Question about the Washington discussions, and Spain was not mentioned.

Mr. Harrison: Will my right hon. Friend use his influence to persuade the Lord President of the Council to have the rearming of Germany discussed in this House before a final decision is made?

Mr. Shinwell: That must be a matter for approach through the usual channels to the Lord President of the Council.

Captain Ryder: Are we to understand that lack of agreement over Germany is the cause of delay in the appointment of a Supreme Commander? Do we not in any case require a Supreme Commander?

Mr. Shinwell: The principle of having a Supreme Commander has been accepted but the operational aspects have yet to be considered, and undoubtedly the difficulty of resolving the problem of German participation in the defence of the West has caused some delay.

Mr. Eric Fletcher: Can my right hon. Friend give us an assurance that, whichever plan is ultimately adopted for the incorporation of German troops in a European Army, German troops will not be equipped until the American, British and French troops have first been fully equipped?

Mr. Shinwell: I beg hon. Members to understand that there are very few details which we have not had under consideration.

Mr. Baldwin: While the Western Powers are making up their minds what to do about rearmament, will the right hon. Gentleman make representations to President Stalin not to rearm?

Mr. Shinwell: When I am instructed by the proper quarter to approach President Stalin I shall not hesitate to do so.

KOREA (STATEMENT)

Earl Winterton: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. Last week, in reply to a question put by me to the Lord President of the Council asking whether a statement could be made on Korea, the Lord President of the Council made the following reply:
There was, of course, a White Paper on Korea quite recently. Nevertheless I personally and the Government agree with the principle which the noble Lord has enunciated. With your permission, Mr. Speaker, my right hon. Friend the Minister of Defence proposes to make a statement next week."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 9th November, 1950; Vol. 480, c. 1132.]
I seek your permission, Mr. Speaker, to ask when this statement is to be made in view of the promise given.

Mr. Speaker: I cannot say. I know nothing of the intentions of the Government.

The Secretary of State for the Home Department (Mr. Ede): I understand that my right hon. Friend will make the statement tomorrow.

Mr. Churchill: Can the Minister of Defence say whether this statement will include the casualties?

Mr. Shinwell: I hope to furnish the House with all the information I can.

BALLOT FOR NOTICES OF MOTIONS

PAPER AND BOARDS (SHORTAGE)

Mr. H. A. Price: I beg to give notice that on Friday, 24th November, I shall call attention to the serious shortage of paper and boards of all kinds, and move a Resolution.

PLAYINGFIELDS

Miss Burton: I beg to give notice that on Friday. 24th November, I shall call attention to the need for additional playingfield accommodation, and move a Resolution.

MONOPOLIES (PRIVATE ENTERPRISE)

Mrs. Jean Mann: I beg to give notice that on Friday, 24th November, I shall call attention to the monopolies established by private enterprise, and move a
Resolution.

BILLS PRESENTED

SALMON AND FRESHWATER FISHERIES (PROTECTION) (SCOTLAND) BILL

"to amend the law in regard to the protection of salmon and freshwater fish in Scotland, including the whole of the River Tweed, and for purposes connected therewith," presented by Mr. McNeil; supported by the Lord Advocate, Mr. Webb, Mr. Thomas Williams. Mr. Thomas Fraser and Miss Herbison; read the First time; to be read a Second time Tomorrow, and to be printed. [Bill 15.]

REINSTATEMENT IN CIVIL EMPLOYMENT BILL

"to make further provision for the reinstatement in civil employment of persons who have served whole-time in the armed forces of the Crown, and for safeguarding the employment of persons liable to serve as aforesaid; and for purposes connected with the matters aforesaid," presented by Mr. Isaacs; supported by Mr. Shinwell, Mr. Strachey, Mr. Henderson, the Attorney-General, Mr. Callaghan and Mr. Lee; read the First time; to be read a Second time Tomorrow, and to be printed. [Bill 16.]

RIVERS (PREVENTION OF POLLUTION) BILL

"to make new provision for maintaining or restoring the wholesomeness of the rivers and other inland or coastal waters of England and Wales in place of the Rivers Pollution Prevention Act, 1876, and certain other enactments," presented by Mr. Bevan; supported by Mr. Thomas Williams and Mr. Blenkinsop; read the First time; to be read a Second time Tomorrow, and to be printed. [Bill 17.]

Orders of the Day — RESTORATION OF PRE-WAR TRADE PRACTICES BILL

Considered in Committee.

[Major MILNER in the Chair]

Clause 1.—(PERIOD TO WHICH OBLIGATION TO RESTORE TRADE PRACTICES RELATES.)

3.45 p.m.

Mr. McCorquodale: I beg to move, in page 2, line 7, at the end, to insert:
A draft of any Order in Council proposed to be made under this subsection shall be laid before Parliament, and the draft shall not be submitted to His Majesty except in pursuance of an address presented by each House of Parliament praying that the Order be made.
Our object is to ask whether we can have the affirmative procedure in the control by Parliament of any Order in Council in this important matter instead of the negative procedure as outlined in the Bill. I know that the affirmative procedure is usually not very popular with the leaders of either side of the House or with the Whips, but I believe that on this occasion I can persuade the Government Chief Whip that my case is overwhelming. I shall not argue either the Parliamentary or the legal history of the differences between affirmative and negative Resolutions or when they should normally be applied, though some of my hon. Friends may make reference to these matters. I just want to make one or two comments of a severely practical industrial nature.
The Minister outlined the present procedure in a statement which he made on. 10th November. He said:
This Order will have to be laid before Parliament and will be subject to the negative Resolution procedure.—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 10th November, 1950; Vol. 480, c. 1266.]
If we examine the industrial implications we shall find that this is almost unworkable. Since the Second Reading some of my hon. Friends and I have been giving the matter close attention and it has struck me very forcibly that, whatever the general merits of the affirmative or negative procedure are, it is important that on this occasion we should substitute the affirmative method.
If the proposal for negative procedure is adopted the situation might arise where


the Minister, having consulted the National Joint Advisory Council in the way that he promises, will set in motion the procedure in the Bill. The Order will have to lie on the Table for 40 days during which time Members of Parliament may challenge it. However, industry will have to act immediately the Order in Council is made. It may mean that people are dismissed. It may well mean that dilutees have to be got rid of in order that permanent staff may be retained. Perhaps the relaxations in regard to female labour might have to be changed.
Suppose Parliament disapproves and presents a Prayer to His Majesty negativing the Order. We should have to go back, but from an industrial point of view it is impossible to go chopping and changing, or to dismiss men and then have them back the next day, or for firms to adopt a new procedure one day and then to be told that they can go back again on the day after. It means that the House of Commons would be forced to follow the Order in Council and that it would not be practicable to have a Prayer moved and accepted because that might upset the whole industrial order and perhaps bring about industrial disputes. I believe the Minister was quite frank when he said he wished Parliament to continue to have control. The only way in which Parliament can have control is by being allowed to express its views before a change-over is made in industry and the terms of employment of a great number of workers are altered.
I would therefore suggest, purely from this practical point of view, that the Minister might very seriously reconsider whether in this case a positive procedure is not advisable if the House is to maintain control. Those who were present at the debate on Friday will remember that there was remarkable unanimity on the questions dealt with in the Bill. All hon. Members who spoke emphasised the importance of these matters. That importance has not been lessened by the passage of time.
It was generally hoped on all sides that the Minister might never have to issue an order of this nature. In case that happens—and a definite pledge has been given to the trade unions on this matter and must be honoured by the House—if we are to keep control and if the matter is to be

made industrially practicable, we must be given an opportunity to express our opinions before bringing about changes which will affect the livelihood of hundreds of thousands of people. For those reasons I hope that the Minister will give the matter further attention. I believe that the Order in Council will be unique. It cannot be referred to any general orders or regulations. For that reason I hope that the Minister will give it rather special treatment.

The Minister of Labour (Mr. Isaacs): I appreciate the spirit in which the right hon. Gentleman has moved the Amendment. We had a pleasant Friday morning and I was hoping that we were to have a pleasant Wednesday afternoon. It may yet be pleasant if the right hon. Gentleman will consider one or two fundamental points.
The Order will lie in draft for 40 days. Even when an order is made, if ever one is made—I say that in all seriousness—there will be no need for any firms to take steps to restore practices until two months have elapsed. A further point of some importance is that under the Act the House of Commons has no authority in the matter because the interpretation section, Section 11, lays it down that the Minister is to make the order. We felt, and I felt myself, in bringing this very important matter forward, that it would be better if the order came before the House so that there should be the widest public knowledge of what was contemplated. Questions could be raised on it, and there could be the widest notice. In the Bill we have given the House a control which it did not have before, but we feel that it would be better to have the negative procedure.
If any importance is attached to this matter and if we have another opportunity of looking at it, I shall give a promise straight away that I will examine it and let the House know on Report stage whether we shall do anything or not. I have no strong feelings one way or the other. At the moment, we have felt it wise to proceed by the negative Resolution way, but my mind is not made up either way and I shall be glad to consider whether we can meet the right hon. Gentleman.

Mr. Ian L. Orr-Ewing: I am glad of the last few sentences that the Minister added to what


he said, because they relieve my mind of any doubt I might have had about his fairness of approach to this problem
I should like to add one argument to those brought forward by my right hon. Friend. There is very considerable psychological value in the proposal set out in the Amendment. Is it not wiser, where we would be approving of a serious step covering a very large number of individuals and firms, that it should go out from this House as a request that it should be done? The procedure suggested in the Bill makes almost an embarrassing approach to the problem. I know that there is nothing within the rigid framework of an Act of Parliament which can give true meaning to the feelings of men and women, but in so far as anything can be done to give a sense that this matter has been fairly considered and adopted and is the will of this House, I believe the only way is that suggested in the Amendment.

Mr. Boyd-Carpenter: I am glad that the right hon. Gentleman has not closed his mind on this point. I attach considerable importance to it for reasons slightly different from those given by my right hon. Friend. If the Order in Council ever is made it will be a matter of great national importance, with repercussions right through our economy. The Parliamentary control contemplated by the Bill, although it would permit the matter to be raised in the House if an hon. Member put down a Motion, would not necessarily secure the full-dress discussion at the right time of day which a matter of such importance demands.
Hon. Members opposite are probably only too well aware that Motions under the negative procedure come on at highly inconvenient hours of the night. That might be an appropriate time for small matters, but not for a matter of this gravity. It is the general practice that matters of first-class national importance are dealt with under the affirmative procedure, and as this matter is clearly of first-class importance I hope that the right hon. Gentleman will reconsider it in this light.

4.0 p.m.

Mr. Niall Macpherson: If I understand this matter aright, what is proposed is not just that all the practices that were abandoned by agreement are to

be restored at one fell swoop, as was contemplated under the original Act but I think that the Parliamentary Secretary nodded assent at another stage in the Bill when I suggested that it was different practices in different industries. If that is not so. I trust that the right hon. Gentleman will correct me, but if it is a question of the interpretation of the words in the Act, then I certainly read the present Bill in that sense, that it would be possible to restore different practices at different times.
If that is so, as I indicated on a previous occasion what would happen is that in all probability, as a result of some dispute arising in an industry or industries, there would be a demand for the restoration of a practice which the employers would consider that it was not opportune to restore, but that the employees would think that is was opportune to restore it and would go to the Minister for a decision. It would be in circumstances such as that, surely, that the matter would arise. If that were so, and even if it is not so, the delay of 40 days before the proposed order became operative would be a serious deterrent in the resolution of the dispute.
Even if the illustration I have given is not correct, even if all the practices are to be restored at one time, the manner in which this kind of question would come up would be such that it would probably require a fairly urgent decision, and it would, therefore, be more advisable to bring the matter before the House, when the House would discuss it and would decide upon it without this delay of 40 days—bearing in mind that even after the 40 days, industry is given yet another two months to restore the practice. That represents a very long delay indeed, and if the practices are to be restored I suggest it would be much better that they should be restored quickly and not over a long period.

Mr. Isaacs: May I correct the hon. Member and, possibly, the Committee? Of course, the Bill does not restore anything at all—nothing whatever. All that it does is to give the right to claim a restoration. Therefore, it is quite impossible to go piecemeal through every one of the practices and give an opportunity to restore them. What would be said, on the application of both sides of industry, is, "Will you now take away this pro-


tection and give us the right to ask for our pre-war practices back again." A lot of practices have gone for ever, because in the meantime agreements have been made between organisations and employers to let them go altogether.
Therefore, once an order is made, it would say, "From two months from this date, no employer can retain these wartime practices if it is claimed that he should give them up." He has to restore them for 18 months and then, of course, he is no longer compelled to give them up. All these matters will be settled by negotiation. The important point is that the order would have to be one which covered the whole of the purposes of the Bill.

Mr. McCorquodale: We are grateful to the Minister for the sympathetic way in which he has met us and for having said that he will consider the matter before the Report stage. I promised at the outset of the Second Reading that we on this side were at one with him upon the terms of the Bill and would help to facilitate its passage. Before I ask leave to withdraw the Amendment, however, I should like to reinforce what my hon. Friend the Member for Kingston-upon-Thames (Mr. Boyd-Carpenter) has said. The Minister has partially answered my point, I admit, but I think that, with the unique importance of the Order in Council which is contemplated, if it ever came to be made, something exceptional might well be found to be desirable. With those comments, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the Amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Mr. Boyd-Carpenter: I beg to move, in page 2, line 13, to leave out from "on," to the second "the," in line 14, and to insert:
on or after the said third day of September, nineteen hundred and thirty-nine.
This Amendment is designed to deal with the matter to which the right hon. Gentleman expressly referred on Second Reading, when he stated quite frankly that the Bill in its present form removed post-war firms—that is, firms started since 3rd September, 1945—from the scope of the 1942 Act, as amended. The purpose of the Amendment is to seek from the right hon. Gentleman a somewhat fuller explanation of the reasons for

this, on the face of it, somewhat anomalous step.
It is the fact—there may be reasons to justify it, and if there are the right hon. Gentleman will, I am sure, give them—that as the Bill now stands, if the Order in Council contemplated by it were ever made, a very curious and anomalous situation would arise. Take the case of a post-war firm which was started in, say, 1946, in competition with older firms. If the Order in Council is made, that 1946 firm is under no obligation, as I understand it, to restore pre-war practices. Its competitors, who may be firms which started business either before or during the war, are, however, subject to such a responsibility. That seems on the face of it anomalous and to give an unfair competitive advantage to the post-war firm.
I appreciate that serious difficulty would be unlikely to arise in practice, because I do not imagine that any trade union which knew its business would allow the post-war firm to have this advantage. But it would certainly make the Bill clearer as an Act of Parliament, and would possibly make for somewhat smoother industrial relations, if all firms concerned were under the same liability. It is for that reason, because it seems that we are deliberately creating an anomaly, that I move the Amendment. I hope that if the right hon. Gentleman cannot accept it, he will at least give a clear statement of the reason for the provisions in the Bill as it stands.

Colonel J. R. H. Hutchison: I should like to add some support to what my hon. Friend the Member for Kingston-upon-Thames (Mr. Boyd-Carpenter) has said. One of the cardinal and guiding principles of good legislation must be, surely, that we do not put one section of the community at a disadvantage with another similar section. As my hon. Friend has pointed out, that may well happen as the Bill is at present written. I am perfectly prepared to believe, as my right hon. Friend said in the Second Reading debate—and, I think, the Minister assented to it—that in practice this sort of difficulty would probably be ironed out. But if that is so, no harm can be done by accepting the Amendment, because, by practice, post-war, wartime and pre-war firms will all have got on to what I may call the same level.
Therefore, to accept the Amendment would make no difference from the then existing situation. If, however, by some slip in use and wont, an anomaly did in fact raise its ugly head and the post-war concerns were left at an advantage as compared with their competitors who were set up during or before the war, then we should be offending against one of the cardinal virtues of good legislation. No possible harm can come about by accepting the Amendment. If the matter has put itself right already, the Amendment does no harm, but if not, then the Amendment is needed.

The Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Labour (Mr. Frederick Lee): As the hon. Member for Kingston-upon-Thames (Mr. Boyd-Carpenter) has said, the Amendment is designed to put postwar firms in the same position as wartime firms in regard to responsibilities under the Act. If the Amendment is adopted, post-war firms, like wartime firms, would be under an obligation at the appointed day to adopt the pre-war trade practices of the most nearly analogous undertakings. I hope to show that although industry itself recognises that there is bound to be what on the face of it would appear to be an anomaly whenever the appropriate day was agreed upon, the Amendment is impossible of execution in a practical sense.
The Amendment pre-supposes that prior to the war period there was complete unanimity and sameness in the way in which each firm carried out its operations and processes. That never was the case. I could give to the House illustrations ad lib of arguments which we had with employers when we were suggesting that a certain process should be registered for relaxation purposes because semi-skilled men or women were going to work on a job previously done by skilled men. The argument was put forward on many occasions that there were firms where that same job had been done either by semiskilled labour or by women. There never was a time when there was a complete pattern in industry which one could say was the custom for the production of certain types of things.
On most things it was not so much the machine which determined the type of labour to be used as the job which was performed on the machine. Hon. Members will readily realise that with a milling machine, upon which very intricate

and highly-skilled work was to be performed, an employer would not dream of trusting such work to a semi-skilled person or to a woman who was not sufficiently proficient in the job to be able to do it correctly. Therefore, the determining factor was in a large degree the type of work which was to be performed on a particular machine.
The upgrading of unskilled men to semi-skilled work was not something which came about merely because of the 1942 Act. The upgrading of unskilled people to semi-skilled jobs was quite common throughout industry. It is one of the processes which went on gradually and would have continued irrespective of the war. I agree at once that because of the war situation, because of the shortage of skilled labour and so on, the momentum with which semi-skilled or unskilled people were put upon certain skilled or semi-skilled processes increased remarkably. But it is not true to say that it was merely because of the 1942 Act that unskilled men were upgraded to semiskilled positions in industry. The Bill is confined specifically to events which took place during the war, and I should have thought that if we agreed to a principle of the kind which is proposed, we should probably need to recast the Bill entirely in order to make provision for post-war conditions.

Colonel Hutchison: Would the Parliamentary Secretary deal with a specific problem which I have in mind? I know of a mill now being erected in which the number of looms per operative will be very many more than was customary before the war. That mill has exact competitors. Does the hon. Gentleman think it is right that if—we hope it will not come about—an Order in Council is made, that new mill with, say—I take the figures at hazard—one operative for six looms, should be allowed to continue while its competitors were forced to return to having one operative looking after, say, one, two, three or four looms?

4.15 p.m.

Mr. Lee: If we could take out of our minds for a moment the fact that the war occurred, we could see that constantly within industry, day after day, new processes are arising in the ordinary evolution of productive methods. These things arise, and new agreements are signed between employers and trade unions in


order to take care of the type of labour which will use these new methods appropriate to the scale, or skill, to be used on such occasions. These new methods and processes are perfected every day and the plant which was used on the former process has on many occasions to be scrapped. The plant becomes quite obsolete. This applies not only to postwar firms but to pre-war firms who, under this Measure, are bound to restore prewar practices.
I am trying to show that it is not feasible to believe that the post-war firm, the war-time firm, or the pre-war firm can put back the clock to the extent of being able to engage in those pre-war practices because many of the machines considered modern then have been uprooted. It would not be physically possible to go back to those days. We are discussing firms which came into existence after the 1942 Act and factories in which the machines or assembly sections existed during the war but which never existed pre-war. The purpose of the Amendment would be to force a firm which came into existence in 1946, or at any date since, which has set up productive lines on modern methods and operated those lines, to go to the junk heap for lathes and such things which were scrapped years ago.

Mr. Boyd-Carpenter: If there is any force in the argument the hon. Gentleman is using, is it not equally applicable to the situation which would arise if the Order in Council were made in respect of a firm which started operation in 1944? Is not that provided by subsection (2) of the Clause?

Mr. Lee: This Amendment is asking that we should treat firms which have come into operation in the post-war period in the same way as pre-war firms and war-time firms. I say it is impossible to force a firm which came into operation since the end of the war to use practices common in industry in pre-war days. They have new types of production and the whole of their plans and labour force are based on new methods in industry which could not be assimilated by obsolete methods.

Colonel Hutchison: We must compare like with like.

Mr. Lee: Yes, but the hon. Member asked us to legislate for post-war firms. What does that mean? It may mean a firm in existence at the moment, but what would the hon. Member do with a firm which came into existence two months after the agreed date? We cannot say that we are only asking firms which have come into existence since the end of the war, in the last five years, to observe prewar trade practices because it would be unfair to other firms if they do not and then to say that the firm which comes into existence two months after the agreed date shall not be inhibited in any way. It is not practical to believe that we can legislate for a firm merely because it happens to be in existence now, against the firm which will come into existence in x number of months after the agreed date.

Colonel Hutchison: I apologise for interrupting and I do not want to make a cause célèbre of this, but is the hon. Gentleman saying that it would be better to have an injustice, although a small one, defined by the end of the war period than that the same injustice should be defined in time by the Order in Council?

Mr. Lee: Many of our problems today, in a great industrial country like Britain, arise from the fact that we were in the industrial field long before the United States of America. No matter how one looks at this, whether on an international or a national basis, there comes a point in which the more modern firm will always have the advantage in competitive method against the older firm. Although on the face of it there is the anomaly, nevertheless there is no practical way out of the anomaly.
The effect of the Amendment would be to retard progress in British industry. It would make the more modern firm comply with pre-war practices which were in existence before its own plant lay out and modern equipment were brought into existence. The only way in which to pull it back, in order that it should be on a fair basis of competition with pre-war firms, would be to scrap the whole of its modern plant and put junk in its place.
Because of those considerations and the points I have mentioned, we cannot legislate for some post-war firms and not for others which are new firms not yet in operation but which will come into


operation two months after the agreed date, without giving the same competitive advantage over the post-war firm now in existence against which hon. Members are complaining. I say it would be unfair to penalise the more progressive type of employer. Since the war many firms have done quite a lot in the way of capital replacement and so on and are not in a position physically to implement pre-war practices. Because it is impossible to do this, because of the post-war firm not yet in existence, and because the whole layout does not lend itself to adaptation to pre-war conditions, it would penalise very heavily the firm which was progressive in utilising its resources for the purchase of new plant against the firm which is more reactionary in that sense, and I ask hon. Members opposite not to press the Amendment.

Mr. McCorquodale: I said on the Second Reading that this was not a very important point, because from a practical point of view I felt that the normal agreements with the trade unions would get over it. I also said that only a very pedantic person would seek to make a great deal out of it. I am now going to put myself in danger of being called a pedantic person, but I am not going to make a great deal out of this because I am at one with the Minister in hoping that the Order in Council will never have to be made. Secondly, if it is made, I am quite sure that normal methods of trade union and employer negotiation will get over these anomalies.
But I do not think it is a good thing to create anomalies by Act of Parliament, unless we are forced to do so. Even if they are not going to matter very much, I do not think it a good principle and I agree fully with the comments of my hon. Friends on this side of the Committee. I have endeavoured to follow the Parliamentary Secretary, but it appeared to me that the arguments he adduced as to the difficulty of forcing the post-war firm to adopt the same restrictive practices which were in operation before the war applied to the whole of industry. I thought his argument actually pointed to the fact that the whole Bill would not work and that if he reads his remarks tomorrow he will find them an indictment of the Bill.
These matters are entirely a question of trade union and employer agreement.

The relaxation of pre-war practices was, probably in nearly every case, the subject of a specific trade union agreement. We had one in the industry of which the right hon. Gentleman and I have some knowledge. If we are to go back to pre-war conditions, every firm in, say, 1953 or 1955 will be in the same position as we shall all have modernised our plants—at least I hope we will—and have adopted the latest practices. I hope we shall have learned considerably from productivity teams and shall endeavour to put our house in order.
Let it not be supposed that firms established 100 or more years ago do not try to keep themselves up-to-date as much as those established since 1945. I think the arguments the hon. Gentleman adduced, if they have weight, would apply to all firms which endeavour to modernise themselves. The Bill is either unworkable, or the hon. Gentleman's argument does not carry very much weight. I believe the latter is the case, because trade unions, being sensible people and employers, we hope, being sensible people, also will naturally take into account the present state of their industry when they make a new agreement, because a new agreement will have to be made. If there have been complete changes of technique which mean that the old state of affairs cannot be returned to easily, I should think that would take an important place in the new agreement.
I suggest a further reason why I believe that on consideration it is really best and fairest to all concerned and will not make for any more confusion of the present situation, but will satisfy all people if this alteration is made. In this matter we have been discussing the position of the firms. In reality we should be discussing the position of the employees in the firms, because it is to them that this Bill is important. The employees in these firms may well have been engaged since the war, even if a firm was in existence before the war.

Mr. Lee: I am interested in the argument of the right hon. Gentleman but, while dealing with this question, will he refer to my point about the firm which is not yet in existence? Will he tell the Committee, for instance, if he were opening a new factory, how he would consider the new machinery he is to introduce? Would he do it with an eye


on this Bill? Instead of getting ultra modern methods, would he endeavour to swing over to pre-war trade practices at a given moment?

Mr. McCorquodale: I would adopt the most modern methods I could if I were building a new factory, as indeed we are endeavouring to build up our present factories by the purchase of such machinery as the Ministry of Supply will allow us to get after export orders have been satisfied, but the hon. Gentleman must not lead me astray. The crucial date is the date when the new agreement is signed between the employers and work-people. After that, the thing has to be operated and firms then in existence should, in my judgment, follow the agreement then made between employers and trade unions.
4.30 p.m.
When the hon. Gentleman interrupted me I was referring to the position of the employees. As so many of the present employees in all the firms—A, B, and C as we called them in the Second Reading Debate, the pre-war, war-time and postwar firms—will have joined since the war, it may well be that a quarter or a half of the staff of a pre-war firm, especially the women, may now be post-war entrants into that industry, and confusion will be complete if, to a row of young men coming into industry in 1950 we say, "Because you have gone to firm X you have certain rights, but if you had gone to firm Y, which has been established since the war, you would not have those rights."
This is an agreed Measure between the representatives of the trade unions and the employers. Through the courtesy of the Minister I have endeavoured to make inquiries whether this specific point had been discussed between them. I understand that there is some doubt whether their minds were turned specifically to this relatively small point in an important Bill. Would the Minister be so good, between now and a later stage of the Bill, to ask informally the opinion of both sides, whether they think that the fairest practice is the one we have suggested—namely, all on the same terms, even though it creates some anomalies?

Mr. Lee: From what date?

Mr. McCorquodale: From the date when the Order in Council is made, or agreement is reached between the two trade unions concerned. From the Parliamentary point of view I think it will have to be the date of the Order in Council. Perhaps the Minister would consult with the two sides of industry to find out their views on this matter? They may say that it is a relatively minor point which can be settled at the time; on the other hand, they may say that it would be much better if they knew exactly where they were and where their competitors were. I have heard that latter view expressed by some industrialists since the Second Reading Debate. If the Minister would do that and give their view, I would be satisfied, knowing that it had been considered by those who individually agreed the Measure.

Mr. Isaacs: With regard to the final point mentioned by the right hon. Gentleman, we have consulted both sides. We consulted our National Joint Advisory Council, but I cannot say that I have a specific intimation that they agree. However, I have no intimation that they do not agree. I am prepared to look into that.
May I bring the discussion down to a practical point? What is the practical position with which we are faced? First, let us assume that a firm has started up in one of those industries since the war. It has had to get the co-operation of the Ministry of Labour and of the trade unions to get its staff and agreements. Those agreements have been made since the end of the war and, with some considerable knowledge of trade union activity, I cannot imagine them coming forward and saying, "We have made this agreement but now this Bill has been passed you must scrap it all and we shall go back to the pre-war position." The hon. Member who used the word "pedantic" was quite right.
This Bill only makes it possible for an organisation—not a worker, but a trade union—to come forward and say, "We are legally entitled to have these things restored to us." But I cannot visualise that the unions will simply come forward and say, "The law says this, gives us back these practices at the end of two months." Why is two months there? For the purpose of enabling negotiations


to continue. There will be general negotiations and agreements. I know that many pre-war practices have been cast aside and are not likely to come back. For instance, women are on omnibuses, women are in certain classes of industry where men have been hitherto, and there are dilutees. In fact, in the industry with which I was associated for a short while, the system of dilutees is just beginning to gain ground, so it does not look as if it will be thrown overboard.
Assuming there are these arguments and differences, that there is the impression that a certain post-war firm ought to go back to some practices which an analogous firm was operating before the war, it will not be a question of saying "Yes" or "No." There will be an argument. If they do not settle it by argument, they may report it to the Ministry, and the Ministry has the power and authority then to deal with the matter and to decide whether the employer has discharged any obligation or not. The Act makes it quite clear that the Minister shall
take such other steps as appear to him to be expedient for settling it";
therefore, all the machinery is there for dealing with an occasional case without a lot of trouble.
In view of the fact that, so far as I am aware, there is no objection in industry to this Clause, although it is recognised that minor difficulties may arise, I hope the Amendment will not be pressed.

Mr. I. L. Orr-Ewing: I rise with some disappointment, because I had hoped that the Minister would re-submit this matter for re-examination. I am not particularly concerned whether it was an affirmative resolution on the part of those who saw this proposal in the Bill, whether it was negative, or whether it was simply letting it go by without comment. But I am impressed by the value of the argument used by my two hon. Friends in connection with this Amendment.
Equally, I felt I must rise to defend the Bill itself, because the Parliamentary Secretary has done his best to wreck it. His action was so unkind to the rest of the Committee that I felt somebody ought to say that, on the whole, we think the Bill a good Bill. Suggestions might arise out of the words used by the Parliamentary Secretary. For instance, he argued that we were not really concerned with

differences in machines but with differences in what machines produce; in fact, that these alternations in practices and restorations of practices depended not so much on what machine was employed but on what was produced from it.
That is true as far as the argument goes, but then the hon. Gentleman went on to talk about a change in the grading of labour and skill, and so on, trying to prove that it was impossible to insist upon the restoration of a pre-war trade practice in a certain grade on a certain type of machine. That is a fair interpretation of his argument.

Mr. Lee: Mr. Lee indicated assent.

Mr. I. L. Orr-Ewing: I see that he agrees. But, of course, it is impossible, and because it is impossible, that makes this Amendment particularly necessary. Then it is important for all to be on a fair basis and not only for some to be on an unfair basis.
The Parliamentary Secretary seemed to visualise a state of affairs where it might be possible for an Order in Council to be laid before the House which really had no fair substance behind it. He produced so many points that, by the reductio ad absurdum type of argument, he reduced the powers of this Bill to an almost laughable degree. I was very sorry that he used those words, but I would remind him of this, because I think it is important. Throughout the whole of this country over the last 20 years the places where the greatest amount of skill is now used are quite different from the places where the greatest amount of skill was used 20 years ago. Taking the whole vast field of engineering, the skill of those employed in that great industry, in 99 per cent. of the cases, has moved away from the bench into the tool room. We can, therefore, never restore any practice based on something which happened 15 and 20 years ago. That is impossible, and when the Parliamentary Secretary produces these arguments and said, "You may do this," or "You may make this suggestion," or "This may be the purpose of the Order" what he implied was that the Order may include such impossible conditions which would effect exactly the picture I have just painted.
I am alarmed, and I want to be reassured. I did not want to be reassured half an hour ago, but I do want


to be reassured now. Surely it would be impossible for the Minister to lay a Draft Order on the Table with which it would be impossible for either side to comply. Surely it would not be possible for the Minister to do something like that.

Mr. Isaacs: Mr. Isaacs indicated assent.

Mr. Orr-Ewing: I see that he agrees with me.

Mr. Lee: What the hon. Member is doing now is agreeing with many of the arguments which I used while criticising those same arguments. He is saying that the skill has moved and that methods of production at the time when these Acts were passed no longer obtain. And then he criticises me for saying precisely the same thing in other words.

Mr. Orr-Ewing: I was criticising the fact that the Parliamentary Secretary would not recognise that he was still maintaining different principles at different levels under the same order. But I was impressed because many of the points which he put would, if contained in any suggested draft order, appear to be so absurd that they would undermine the prestige of his own Minister. I would like some reassurance from the Minister himself that he would never consider tabling a draft order of a sort with which it would be impossible for industry as a whole to comply. It is a very alarming suggestion that it could ever be possible for him to consider so doing and I should like the point cleared up.

Mr. Isaacs: The draft order will say one thing, that the order should come into effect on such a date. That is all. The only order, under the Bill, would be the draft order setting out the date on which the Bill comes into force.

Mr. Orr-Ewing: I am grateful to hear that from the Minister.

Mr. Keenan: If the Amendment were accepted by the Minister would the effect be to interfere with production? It seems to me that the Amendment would protect the less efficient firm. If a new firm came into being with methods which would improve the volume of productivity, would the Amendment, if carried, permit an older competitor to say, "You have to go

back"? Would the restrictive practices in operation before the war or during the war have to be applied to the new firm whose new methods of production might be an asset to the country? Perhaps the Minister will tell me whether I am correct assuming that. If I am I do not think that the Amendment should be accepted.

4.45 p.m.

Mr. Boyd-Carpenter: Up to a point I agree with what the hon. Member for Liverpool, Kirkdale (Mr. Keenan) has said. It is quite obvious that the bringing back of a number of pre-war practices under an Order in Council in whatever sphere of industry it was applied would diminish efficiency. But the point raised by the Amendment is that whether or not that diminution of efficiency is to be accepted over the whole sphere of industry, or whether it is to be limited solely by the arbitrary date of when a particular firm started business. But what the hon. Member said, and what was said by the Parliamentary Secretary in a most eloquent speech, amounted to no more than that it would be a disaster if the Order in Council had to be made. I do not think any hon. Member would dispute that.
It is, however, not particularly relevant, for this reason. The 1942 Act, which we are amending today was, as no one recalls better than the Minister, part of a pledge given to the trade unions that if they relaxed certain restrictions during the war period they should be entitled to have those restrictions back when they wanted them. That was the subject of the pledge, and that pledge was inserted in the 1942 Act, regardless of the date of starting business of any of the firms concerned.
This Bill amends that Act, but confines the operation of that pledge to those firms who started before the 3rd September, 1945. As a matter of fact, the effect of the Bill in its present form is to diminish the spread of the pledge given to the unions in the 1942 Act, because it does deprive of any rights under that pledge all those people who work in firms which started business after 3rd September, 1945. To that substantial extent it takes away from the pledge given, as I understand by all parties, to the trade unions in 1942.
Not only that, but as the years pass it takes the rights then given away from an


ever increasing proportion of workers employed in industry, because as the years pass the proportion of firms which started business after 3rd September, 1945, increases. I think we should be clear about what we are doing. It may well be that the Parliamentary Secretary is right and that it would be disastrous to honour this pledge. That does not alter the validity of the pledge—

Mr. Lee: I am not disagreeing with the hon. Member's argument, but would he take it a step further? He says that we are now confining the pledge to those workers engaged in factories which were in existence before 1945. Would he also say that every change of production which has taken place within those firms is also mitigating the influence of that pledge? In other words, does he agree that those factories in operation before 1945 cannot be put back to the use of obsolete machinery in order to carry out what was the pledge given to them, or would he say that to honour the pledge it would be right to scrap the modern machinery?

Mr. Boyd-Carpenter: The Parliamentary Secretary is confusing two separate considerations—the amount of inconvenience which would be involved by honouring the pledge and the question of whether there was a pledge and whether that pledge is being diminished.
I am not disputing the argument of the Parliamentary Secretary that the more recent the firm and the more up to date it is, the more damaging to it would be the application of pre-war practices. That is basic and obvious. All I am saying is: Are we justified or not? We are diminishing the scope of the pledge given in 1942 and that I think is the point we are concerned with today. That is why I am particularly glad that my right hon. Friend specifically asked the Minister whether or not this particular item was an expressly agreed item in the discussions which he conducted with the two sides of the industry?
I must confess I was not very clear from what was said by the right hon. Gentleman as to whether or not that issue was specifically discussed. Nor was I clear as to whether or not he gave the undertaking for which my right hon. Friend asked; that he would at least informally discuss this matter again and see

what was the point of view of both sides. It the right hon. Gentleman would give that undertaking it would I think facilitate not merely the speed of the debate—I do not think that is very important. because it is a very important matter and we should provide some time to discuss it—but it might facilitate the maintenance of that equable atmosphere which I hope we shall succeed in maintaining. However, I am not clear what was the decision of the right hon. Gentleman; I do not know whether he would think it convenient to intervene at this point to say whether or not he is prepared to discuss this matter with the two sides of industry and obtain their specific views on this express point.

Mr. Isaacs: I will certainly intervene, but there is another point with which I would like to deal later. What I intended to convey was that I have not got a definite answer. It was discussed at the National Joint Advisory Council, and subsequently put forward by correspondence which explained the situation. But whether their non-reply is to be taken as assent I would not like to say. I cannot say they have agreed because I have not an answer from them but I will take up that point with them.
The whole thing turns round the first word or two of Section 2 (1) of the Act:
An agreement may be made in writing as respects any undertaking or branch thereof…
All we are dealing with relates to agreements made in writing, and I would draw the attention of the Committee to the fact that I said that similar agreements may have been made since the war.
I am perfectly satisfied that the agreements made since the war will be as much honoured by the unions as any agreements they are now asking the employers to restore to them. It all depends on agreement and is not a question of anyone giving back any pre-war practices. When the Minister is asked to intervene he has to be satisfied about the evidence, the documents and what is the precise position. I am given to understand that there are thousands of them.

Mr. Boyd-Carpenter: I am obliged to the right hon. Gentleman for that helpful intervention and I would merely add that we are not only concerned here with


agreements, but are concerned with the statutory background to them. We are concerned, if hon. Members like the term, with the legal rights given to the unions by the 1942 Act and that is an important matter, which is germane to the Amendment. But in view of what the right hon. Gentleman said, it would certainly be my intention, unless any other hon. Member desires to carry this matter further, to seek the permission of the Committee to withdraw the Amendment, so that the right hon. Gentleman can do what he has been good enough to undertake to do. He will, no doubt, give to the House the results of his discussions at a later stage.

Mr. Awbery: We are not restoring pre-war privileges at all but are giving the power to industry, by negotiation, to approach the employer or the Government. In the early days of the war it became, in the opinion of the Government, necessary to do away with certain practices so that there should be greater output. They introduced a Bill and employers and workpeople sat together and decided that these various practices should go by the board for the duration of the war.
That period is now being terminated by this Bill and when it is passed industry will need to negotiate the kind of practice it is desirable to restore. It may be desirable to restore all the practices given up in 1939. It may be necessary, in the opinion of the industry, to restore half of them or to restore none of them. Negotiations will be taking place between employers and employees, and requests will go from one particular works or from an industry to the Ministry of Labour and the Ministry will then make an order. That is how I understand it.

Mr. McCorquodale: Is the hon. Gentleman supposing that when an agreement is made and goes to the Ministry that the agreement will cover all firms, both postwar and pre-war?

Mr. Awbery: I am coming to that point.
We have divided industry into three—the pre-war factories, the factories established during the war and the factories which have been established subsequent to the war. In my opinion, under this system of over-organisation I cannot see how a works established since the war

can be left outside any agreement. If a factory which has been established since the war has got up-to-date machinery, and it is necessary to establish some new conditions in that factory, it can be done easily by negotiation. There are employers and employees working together to establish conditions in the new factories as in the old, and all they have to do is to approach the Minister to get an order put into operation.

Mr. Boyd-Carpenter: For the reasons I have already given, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the Amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the Clause stand part of the Bill."

Mr. John Grimston: I should like to get some information from the Minister on a matter which I put to him before and which, I think, represents a practical difficulty if ever an Order in Council comes to be made. Under subsection (1) of this Clause we are dealing solely with written agreements, and I see no difficulty in implementing them. Under subsection (2) we are to establish what the analogous conditions were in similar undertakings a long time ago. When the 1942 Act was passed it was envisaged putting into operation in the first place written agreements, about which there is no difficulty; and in the second place, restrictive practices currently applied in similar industries. The parties to that kind of agreement could point to restrictive practices going on next door, and there could be no doubt about what actually was to be applied.
Under this Bill, supposing the order comes into force in 1952, we shall be asking a firm, which was started during the war, to apply in 1952, practices which are nowhere laid down and which have never applied in that firm but which some body or union say were in operation in similar firms in 1942. I can see a very practical difficulty in determining under those circumstances what the conditions were in analogous factories 10 years ago. I know that this cannot be imposed through this House. It has to come from agreement on both sides of the industry, but the Parliamentary Secretary used the word "impossible" in a very similar case just now when talking of firms established after the war.
5.0 p.m.
Will the Minister examine this point and see if there is any chance of getting some written agreement now, while memories are fairly fresh, as to what were the conditions applied during the wartime period, so that when an Order in Council is made, if it is ever made, we shall then by referring to this written agreement know what are the conditions which operated. If we are only to rely on our memories—and they are very fickle things—it may well lead to endless trouble. If the Minister agrees that there should be some agreement now, I think it will be found that we will avoid trouble later.

Mr. Isaacs: I ask the hon. Member for St. Albans (Mr. J. Grimston) not to press this. If the suggestion is going to be made that our people should search through their activities for the last 10 years to find out what were the restrictive practices at that time, some of our friends who like to cause trouble would be in a lovely spot. I suggest that we leave it alone. If these practices have not been operated for 10 years we should let sleeping dogs lie.
I see no difficulty in the matter. The fact that six or seven years after the war not the slightest doubt has arisen nor has there been a claim that certain practices should be put back again, suggests that we should leave things as they are. The original Act provides that if any question arises in respect of an undertaking, where an obligation has been imposed by the employer by Section 1 of the Act and where the employer discharged any obligation so imposed, he can go to the Ministry and use the exhaustive machinery to search for it. Whilst I appreciate the point that we do not want a firm suddenly to be told that 10 years ago this was done or some other method was followed, I think it is better to risk that firm being told that than to require all our people to turn over the troubles of 10 years ago and see what can be found out.

Question put, and agreed to.

Clause ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Clauses 2 and 3 ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Bill reported without Amendment; to be read the Third time Tomorrow.

Orders of the Day — COLONIAL DEVELOPMENT AND WELFARE [MONEY]

Resolution reported:
That, for the purposes of any Act of the present Session to increase the amounts payable out of moneys provided by Parliament for the purposes of schemes under section one of the Colonial Development and Welfare Act, 1940, and to repeal so much of subsection (5) of that section as limits its application to colonies not possessing responsible government, it is expedient to authorise the payment out of moneys so provided of any increase in the sums payable out of such moneys which is attributable to provisions of the said Act of the present Session—

(a) substituting—

(i) twenty-five million pounds for twenty million pounds as the maximum amount that may be paid out of such moneys for the purposes of such schemes in any financial year; and
(ii) one hundred and forty million pounds for one hundred and twenty million pounds as the maximum amount that may be so paid for those purposes in the period of ten years ending with the thirty-first day of March, nineteen hundred and fifty-six;
(b) repealing so much of subsection (5) of the said section one as limits its application to colonies not possessing responsible government."

Resolution agreed to.

COLONIAL DEVELOPMENT AND WELFARE BILL

Considered in Committee.

[Colonel Sir CHARLES MACANDREW in the Chair]

Clause 1.—(AMENDMENT OF 3 & 4 GEO. 6. C. 40, S. 1 (1).)

Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the Clause stand part of the Bill."

Mr. Lennox-Boyd: On a point of order. Is it possible for some right hon. or hon. Member connected with the Colonial Office to be here to answer the very important points which are now going to be raised?

The Deputy-Chairman: That is not a point of order.

5.5 p.m.

Mr. Henderson Stewart: Because of the vacuum now apparent on the Front Bench it is rather difficult to advance the points that I have in mind. It is exceedingly regrettable that the debate must go on without any representative


of the Colonial Office, but the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Labour has undertaken to report what takes place to the Colonial Secretary and we can carry on in those circumstances, though it looks like speaking into a blank wall or an open space.
Clause 1 gives the Secretary of State authority substantially to increase the sums of money to be made available to the Colonies under the present system. These are very substantial sums and I feel that it would be proper for the Secretary of State to tell the Committee in some detail how he proposes to spend that money now that he has got it. I do not mean that we expect him to say that so many thousands will be for this scheme and so many thousands for some other scheme, but we ought to have some broad indication, for example, how many of the total millions it is intended to spend on what might be called the social side, and how many on the economic side. That is a very important consideration.

The Deputy-Chairman: It may be very important, but it can only be discussed on Second Reading.

Mr. Stewart: I bow to your Ruling, Sir Charles, but with respect I am merely asking whether the Committee can be advised of the nature of the projects upon which the money is spent. Would that be in order?

The Deputy-Chairman: In a very narrow way. This Clause deals only with the money.

Mr. Stewart: I shall try to make my speech as narrow as possible. Let us put it this way. Could the Government indicate as narrowly as you, Sir Charles have ruled, what part of these sums they would allot to new housing, roads, health, education, and what part to new schemes such as the development of agriculture, industry, fishing or things of that kind. If that could be indicated, we might then be able to assess the intentions of the Government. [Interruption.]
Now that the right hon. Gentleman the Colonial Secretary has taken his place we can at least feel that the points being put are being heard by a responsible Minister. I may be allowed to repeat what I have said, for the benefit of the right

hon. Gentleman. It is relatively short. I said that this Bill enables the right hon. Gentleman to spend increased amounts of money, and I was asking whether he would like to indicate how he is going to spend this money, not in detail but broadly speaking. This is a Colonial Development and Welfare Bill. It has two objectives—development and welfare. They are not exactly the same. Indeed, the right hon. Gentleman in his Second Reading speech made it abundantly clear that they are not the same, but he said that they were complementary. As they are two different things and as there is, today, throughout the Committee and the country a clear conception that it is the development rather than the welfare side on which there is emphasis, the right hon. Gentleman ought to indicate what proportions of the sums will be allotted to welfare and what to development.
Let me take the development side. For example, what part of the sum allotted to development would be spent upon projects similar to those now undertaken by the Colonial Development Corporation? The right hon. Gentleman appreciates that the Colonial Development Corporation, the local authority and the Colonial Office are three organisations which must work in the closest harmony. Although this Bill does not authorise the right hon. Gentleman to make grants out of these sums to the Colonial Development Corporation, it is true nevertheless on the development side that it is very unlikely that the right hon. Gentleman will spend much of this money without it being mixed with the moneys spent by the Corporation upon common projects. That would seem to me to make it possible for me, and I hope you will think it permissible, Sir Charles, to ask the right hon. Gentleman to what extent he proposes to use the Colonial Development Corporation for achieving the objects of this Bill.
I do not want to repeat arguments which I have already put to the Committee more than once, but I think the Committee would agree that there must be in the next few years a very great expansion of the development side. The Minister told us the other day that, in fact, his new Colonial Development Corporation will be the body to do that kind of work. Is he therefore satisfied that the present Corporation is capable of doing all that is


needed? Is he satisfied that it is possible for that body to do all that is needed alone, or does he contemplate, as I have suggested, creating another, or even two other, Colonial Development Corporations in order to achieve the objects of this Bill? I put that question to the right hon. Gentleman, who I know did not have time to reply to every question put to him, but, as this is a vital part of this concern, I venture to put it to him again in the hope that he will tell me what is in his mind.
The Colonial Development Corporation is now operating under a new chairman, a man of great gifts and great standing, and a Scotsman, so that all is probably well, but I do not believe that Lord Reith, with all his great qualities, is able, through that organisation alone, to do one half of what is required in the next 10 years. I am of opinion, and I know that this opinion is shared by many responsible men of experience and knowledge, that some considerable change must be made in this whole project of Colonial Development Corporations. I think the Colonies should be divided into areas—

The Deputy-Chairman: I must remind the hon. Member that the debate on the Question, "That the Clause stand part of the Bill," is very narrow and must be confined to the Clause itself. I think he is now going rather wide of that.

Mr. Stewart: I understand, and, of course, I accept your Ruling, Sir Charles, and I shall not develop the argument further. I have tried to make the point on as narrow a platform as possible, and I hope that you will feel that it is possible for the Minister to make an appropriate reply to the points I have made.

Mr. Snow: I should like to support the hon. Member for Fife, East (Mr. Henderson Stewart), though I shall abide by your Ruling, Sir Charles. Every year, when I read this Report, I am struck by the comparative lack of knowledge that persists, not only in this House but outside, about some of the more obscure Dependencies listed in the Report, for which financial provision is made within the terms of this Bill.
I hope my right hon. Friend the Colonial Secretary will not mind me making reference inside this Committee to a conversation which I had with him once, because I think it may very well

be that this money will be well spent if there were to be an application of some of it to some of these very outlandish parts of our possessions and if there were some provision by which the Committee might be better informed about them. I know practically nothing, and I am prepared to bet that nine out of 10 people in the Committee also know practically nothing, about the Gilbert and Ellice Islands. Who knows anything about the Solomon Islands? Again what does anybody know about Antigua, Montserrat, St. Kitts—Nevis, the Virgin Islands, Grenada and St. Lucia? These are all places about which one or two people in this Committee may know something, but about which we ought to know a great deal more.
I have the suspicion that there are things going on in these Dependencies which we ought to know about and which must affect their economies. They are matters which this Committee ought to have the opportunity of discussing with a greater knowledge. Here, we are proposing to spend a great deal of money in the better-known parts of the Colonial Empire, and I suggest that we might consider finding some of the money, which the Colonial Secretary once told me he had not got, in order to investigate on the spot what is going on in these very distant parts of the Colonial Empire.

5.15 p.m.

Mr. Alport: Before agreeing to the sum contained in this Clause, there are three points which I would ask the right hon. Gentleman to make clear.
The first is how the figure of £20 million, which is to be added to the sum available for colonial welfare and development during the next five years, is arrived at. Is that sum considered to be the most that we can afford, or is it regarded as being adequate for the purposes which the Government have in mind? I think that my hon. Friends on this side of the Committee would feel that it is neither as much as we can afford in this particular case, nor is it adequate for the purposes for which it is required.
My second question is why the horizon for operations is limited to 1956? I can see quite clearly that, in the circumstances of 1945, it was impossible to plan or to consider the necessities for colonial welfare and development more than 10 years


ahead, but I would have thought that, after the experience of the last five years, and having the certainty in our minds that these schemes must go beyond 1956, this period in the development of the scheme might have been a good point at which to plan for another full 10 years into the future. Surely, there must be continuity if these schemes are to have their maximum value, and unless there is a long horizon in front of the Governments concerned, particularly those of the poorer Colonies, they cannot model their schemes most effectively.
The third point is how far the right hon. Gentleman intends to use this additional money in order to force upon the various Colonies the development of trade unionism. The Committee will remember that, in the 1940 Act, it was laid down that the Secretary of State should not disburse money for this fund for economic developments unless he had ascertained previously that facilities existed in the Colony concerned to allow the development and growth of trade unions, and that, in addition, he was to assure himself that fair conditions of employment also existed.
There is not one hon. Member on this side of the Committee who would oppose either the proper, responsible and gradual development of trade unionism in any British Dominon or Colony, or the pressing forward of improvements in conditions of employment, but there has been a feeling, which I would certainly express personally in this case, that the money which we vote for colonial welfare and development has been used in the last five years in order to force—to hothouse, so to speak—the development of trade unionism in the Colonies, regardless of whether the conditions in those Colonies were appropriate to that development. I I would remind the right hon. Gentleman that under the Act of 1945, one Protectorate—

The Deputy-Chairman: I think that what the hon. Member is now saying comes under the Ruling I gave a short time ago. The Debate must be confined to the Clause.

Mr. Alport: Naturally, Sir Charles, will not develop the point any further, but I do ask the right hon. Gentleman, in the interests of trade unionism itself, for an assurance that he will not use this

money in order to force the artificial development of trade unionism in connection with the schemes that may be financed. I hope the right hon. Gentleman will reply to the three points I have put forward.

Dr. Barnett Stross: It will be noted that among the financial arrangements to be provided, mention is made of the sum of £2,500,000 to be dedicated for the promotion of research. The volume of research already being conducted under the guidance of the Colonial Secretary is a very considerable sector of the whole field. There are one or two aspects of it about which I wish to ask a few questions, as, for instance, what priorities my right hon. Friend has in mind regarding the distribution of the money.
In the first place, it is not entirely a matter of giving, because we are already receiving considerable benefit. I was very struck indeed to find that from the University College in the West Indies we are receiving the benefit of the piece of research on monomycin which may save hundreds of thousands of lives all over the world. All those who have been responsible for and are interested in that research should be congratulated. The Colonial Secretary has always shown great interest in matters of social hygiene and public health, and I am sure he realises that one of the great problems facing his Department today is the question of tuberculosis in Africa, and how much money can be allocated out of these funds in order to prevent the extension of that disease and to effect a cure of those affected.
I wish to ask my right hon. Friend whether he agrees that, in view of the difficulties of getting enough skilled medical personnel from Britain to go and work there permanently, it would be desirable at this stage to set up a research station in Africa in order that African medical men, wherever they have been trained, may study on the spot this specific disease as it affects the Africans, because they would then have the advantage of knowing they were going to work in their own country and would not be confused by training in this country where they call our sanatoria chromium plated.
Reference is made to the expenditure of money in Gambia on a mill for grinding the cereals on which the natives live.


I wish to ask the Colonial Secretary whether he remembers the experience of the Dutch in the East Indies when rice was first milled and people began to sicken and die from beri-beri because no one knew that the outer husk constituted the protective part of their diet and kept them in good health. I hope my right hon. Friend will bear in mind that any alteration in the dietary of the peoples in the Colonies must be such as not to alter flavour, if possible, and certainly not to remove those protective parts of the dietary upon which their health, their safety, and their very lives depend. If he will give me an assurance that this point will be borne in mind, I shall be very happy indeed.

Mr. Peter Smithers: I think we are all aware of the difficulties under which we labour in speaking on this Clause, but before I ask the Secretary of State for the Colonies for certain assurances, I wish to refer to what was said by the hon. Member for Lichfield and Tamworth (Mr. Snow). With great interest I heard him suggest that more attention should be paid to the Gilbert and Ellice Islands, the Montserrat and Solomon Islands, and, indeed to the Virgin Islands. I agree with everything he said on the subject, and I urge the right hon. Gentleman to consider the point very carefully. We on this side of the Committee do try to pay attention to the smaller and more remote territories, and the right hon. Gentleman should consider very carefully whether or not he should send the hon. Member for Lichfield and Tamworth to the Gilbert and Ellice Islands, the Montserrat and Solomon Islands, and, indeed to the Virgin Islands.
I now pass to the Clause. What we must all have wondered very much at various times is whether the funds available for colonial development and welfare would ever by anything like adequate to the needs of the Empire. I very well remember the striking speech once made by my hon. Friend the Member for Preston, North (Mr. Amery) in which he described those needs in terms of scores of Tennessee Valley schemes. If we take this figure of £140 million mentioned in the Clause, it must, at first sight, appear to be very inadequate in face of the tremendous demand for capital in the Colonies.
I suggest that it is a false calculation to make a direct comparison, and that where we have this relatively small sum, the answer to its adequacy or inadequacy depends upon adopting the right priorities in its expenditure. Theoretically, there is a short-term and a long-term approach to the subject. Had we adopted the short-term view the whole of this sum would, perhaps, have been spent on welfare. It would then, indeed, have been grossly inadequate because the needs of the Colonial Empire far exceed £140 million. If, however, we had adopted the longest-term view—and this is, of course, a purely theoretical view—it would, perhaps, have been spent entirely on development because from that development would have flowed a sufficient development of wealth to support a greater degree of welfare.
We obviously have to seek a compromise between the two. I think the Secretary of State made it clear to us that in the allocation of this very small amount of money he would be giving considerable priority to development in the future. The more we concentrate on development, however much we may dislike risking having to do without some of the welfare schemes, the more adequate the figure of £140 million is likely to be, although, of course we would all like to go far beyond it.
5.30 p.m.
If we are to make the most of this sum there are three principles which we ought to apply to its expenditure, and if we apply them we are likely to get a very considerable result for our £140 million. The first principle is that to every scheme sanctioned within this limit of £140 million there should be applied the test whether it is likely to attract private capital in addition to what we are putting into it. In other words, if we are putting in a shilling we hope that somebody else puts in a pound. I hope that that test is applied to every scheme under this Bill.

Mr. Sorensen: If one adopted that principle would it not be the case that no welfare work would be done at all?

Mr. Smithers: On the contrary. The hon. Member will realise that I am putting forward a test which will have to be applied in every case and, naturally, schemes which are going to augment development by drawing from private sources should have a high priority.

The Deputy-Chairman: But is that in the Clause?

Mr. Smithers: My point is that the adequacy of the funds will depend upon that principle.
The second principle on which the adequacy of these funds depends is that of making sure that, in their application, they will make use of the maximum amount of existing human and material resources. Out of this £140 million every sum which is spent as a final expenditure is going to be a less valuable proportion of the whole than any sum which is going to fertilise existing resources. Here I should like to draw the attention of the right hon. Gentleman to one example, although not to a specific scheme, which I think would be out of order. It is the example of farmers' co-operative schemes. I believe that the more these schemes are encouraged within this sum, the bigger our figure of £140 million will appear.
My third and last point is that if our £140 million is to bulk as large as possible, then, when we consider such schemes as will attract further capital, such as the constructions of roads, we ought to spend as quickly as possible. If the money is spent with the utmost rapidity, it will be likely to give us maximum productivity and the maximum welfare for the very limited amount we are able to find in this Bill. I wish to make it quite clear that I am not suggesting that these proposals should be exclusive but merely that, since we have so little to spare for these vital purposes, we have to consider priorities most carefully if we are to get the maximum value for this money.

Mr. A. Edward Davies: I listened to the hon. Member for Winchester (Mr. Peter Smithers) with close attention, because he is known to have first-hand evidence upon this subject. I think it will be agreed that in considering the amount of money we have available, and which is involved in this Clause, the problem is how best it should be spent, not merely on development and welfare and in attending to human needs but also in terms of schemes of development so that the indigenous populations shall be able to be independent of outside assistance.
The Annual Report on Colonial Territories sets out the aims tersely. We

are seeking to get a strong and vigorous people in the Colonies. That assumes that they must have knowledge and be wise men. Therefore, they must have education. They must be able to support themselves and in addition, have some surplus to exchange for the things that they want from other countries. I also imagine that it is part of the process for which this money is required that we should help our brothers overseas to reach out to self-government and, therefore, some attention must be paid to facilities of that kind.
I should like to emphasise, particularly, the great value of the money set aside for research purposes. I have been greatly impressed by reports from the Colonial Office on what has been done with the limited amount of money already provided. I gather that today, in setting aside £2½ million, we shall continue to pay particular attention to the health of the people. Stories set out in the last Annual Report should encourage us to vote with confidence for the sum set out in the Clause. There has been a reduction in infant mortality in Hong Kong, Singapore and elsewhere and there is the record of the treatment of malaria in Cyprus. The disease has been almost exterminated there. Great progress has been made with the sulpha drugs in the treatment of typhus, and with the use of B.C.G. vaccine in the treatment of tuberculosis. These and other campaigns against various diseases are all first-class investments which should not be questioned.
If I had to raise a question at all, it would not be about the use of the money but its adequacy. Is the right hon. Gentleman satisfied that the sum of money earmarked in the Clause is adequate for the purpose? We are told it is not intended to hand out this money for each of the Colonies completely and absolutely for their use, but that some reserve of money will be kept centrally to develop common services. That is a very wise policy.
How far are the British Government collaborating with other metropolitan powers, like France and Belgium, to develop these research services, so that the advantage of their discoveries and their work may be available to all and to the peoples in particular? More


especially, what is being done to overcome the great tragedy which is happening in West Africa in connection with the swollen shoot disease, upon which some money has already been spent and upon which a great deal of research work has been done?
These are most important matters. I shall not detain the House in dealing with other items, but I hope that the Minister will not hesitate to inform the Committee if he feels that this sum is inadequate for the purpose we have in mind—not only for the treatment of disease and the tackling of these human problems but in building up geological services. In the biggest Colony, Nigeria, for example, whatever we do to raise the standard of living and to provide water supplies and so on, the ultimate success of that Colony must depend upon the nature of their minerals and their natural resources. The same applies to other Colonies.
A great deal of this money should be spent, therefore, in finding out what are in the bowels of the earth, and to discover whether there are any rich minerals they can exploit for their own advantage and for the advantage of the world. I am glad to see that, in co-operation with America, much of this work is being done. I hope that, at some convenient opportunity, we shall hear of some success and of some plan which provides not only for the individual welfare of a Colony but for some co-ordinated system so that one Colony is not seeking to grow a product which it is least suited to produce in competition with some other Colony, but that there is going to be some kind of co-relation. I suggest—

The Deputy-Chairman: That goes beyond the Clause.

Mr. Edward Davies: I am sorry, Sir Charles, but I have finished what I had to say.

Mr. Frederic Harris: I have found it a little difficult to know what is in order and what is not.

The Deputy-Chairman: I shall make it quite clear. The hon. Member is allowed to discuss only what is in the Clause.

Mr. Harris: I shall endeavour to keep strictly to that. I understand from what has been said in the last few minutes

that many hon. Members are in considerable doubt about whether sufficient money has been allocated. That leads me to a question I should like to ask the Colonial Secretary. How does he arrive at this figure? Is it the request of the various legislative assemblies? Do they put in demands to the Colonial Secretary and does he then take a decision as to how he will allocate the money?
Like other hon. Members, I am deeply perturbed because, obviously, this is not sufficient money. Bearing that in mind, I would ask: who takes the final decision? Is it the people on the spot? Is it the legislative assemblies and the Governments which put in applications to the Colonial Secretary? If that is so, what happens then? Does the Colonial Secretary cut down everybody in proportion, or what is the final decision? Everything in connection with this expenditure has such a great bearing on the Colony concerned that I believe the method by which the Colonial Secretary reaches the final decision is a vital matter. I should like to know how the figure is decided.

Mr. Follick: There are only two points which I want to raise. Referring to what was said by my hon. Friend the Member for Stoke-on-Trent, North (Mr. Edward Davies), I should like to know what has been done about the Island of Zanzibar and the disease to the cloves from which they are suffering. [Laughter.] This is not a laughing matter. It is about the only income which Zanzibar possesses. In the neighbouring Island of Pemba the cloves are in a very healthy condition, but in Zanzibar, which belongs to the same archipelago, the cloves are dying out. If they die out, then Zanzibar will have no income at all.
The second point refers to what was said by my hon. Friend the Member for Lichfield and Tamworth (Mr. Snow) about the Gilbert and Ellice Islands. What is happening to Palmyra? It is a British dependency and it was owned by a British subject who died last February. Discussions have been going on, or should have been going on, between the British Government, the Australian Government and the United States about the future of that island and to whom it should belong. I should like to know whether British interests in this island are being carefully watched.

5.45 p.m.

Lieut.-Colonel Sir Walter Smiles: I want to keep within order and to speak only about the schemes. One of my hon. Friends said that the development of the various schemes should be planned so that a shilling put into them by the British taxpayer would encourage the investment of one pound from private enterprise. In my lifetime I have seen hundreds of square miles of jungle opened out and turned into prosperous communities where hundreds of thousands of people now live. In the old days it was suggested that such areas could be inhabited only by snakes and mosquitoes, for they were full of swamps and jungle. The great change which has taken place is due to research, and the man who made it possible to populate these places was Sir Roland Ross, whose malarial research work was afterwards carried on by Mr. Malcolm Watson.
In some places I have found that our development was very slow by comparison with Malaya, where it was very fast and extremely efficient. In Malaya they concentrated first upon roads and railways. I have seen so many cases of villagers growing good crops but finding it impossible to transport them to where they could find a profitable market, and I believe that research upon schemes for roads and railways will bring great benefits to the people in the Colonies and to the taxpayers of this country. It might be thought that people have been building roads in the world for thousands of years and know all about it, but in every country into which we go there are different problems arising out of the building of roads. In some places there are swamps. I know that in Southern Rhodesia they found that by putting shingle or stones on two tracks for a motor car they opened up hundreds, if not thousands, of miles of country, and that system was adopted afterwards in other parts of our colonies. I think we should concentrate these development schemes on making it possible to provide roads and railways. If we do that, private industry will follow.
When we speak about hospitals and curing the sick we should remember all that the British oil companies have done in this connection in various parts of the world. They have been responsible for some of the finest hospitals. I understand,

too, that in places where infantile mortality, especially from malaria, was very much higher than in almost any other part of the world, as a result of the work done by these rubber planters, especially in Malaya, some of the plantations are now as healthy as the great City of London, and the vital statistics are as good. I suggest that the money from the British taxpayer which we are spending here should be spent to make it possible for private enterprise to invest in the Colonies. The money should be put, first, into roads and railways, and other benefits will follow.

Mr. Sorensen: If the principle of hon. Members opposite is that only such money should be spent as will immediately attract private capital, then, as I have tried to point out, that limits the expenditure of money purely to development rather than to welfare objectives.

Mr. Smithers: I did not make any suggestion that only such money should be spent as would meet that point. I suggested that it was the most important test of priority if we were to achieve the maximum development and welfare.

Mr. Sorensen: I thank the hon. Member; I appreciate that point. I would merely add this, before I put a question to the Minister. In any case, money spent on development is bound to attract private capital for, wherever public money is spent in opening up roads and transport and railways and so forth, inevitably the conditions are provided for private capital which immediately jumps in to take advantage of the facilities provided.
The question I want to put to my right hon. Friend is this. May I take it that part of the extra money, as well as the original sum, will be devoted to the welfare of colonials in this country, particularly students but not excluding others, too. My right hon. Friend knows that there are a large number of students here and elsewhere who have to be assisted out of public money. Does this sum make it possible to assist students and others in this country, and institutions which they are now attending, on the basis of welfare?

Mr. Baldwin: There is one thing upon which I think both sides of the Committee are unanimous, and that is that the sum we are voting today is totally inadequate by comparison with what is required. The great difference


between the two sides of the Committee appears to be in their views on how the money should be spent. We on this side are adopting the line that it should be spent on development, for if we develop the countries properly, welfare services will automatically spring from the development. If the policy of welfare first is initiated, then the danger is that it may be impossible for those countries to continue the social services which we start, unless we have developed those countries with roads, railways and so on. If we develop them, then their resources will increase and will enable them to carry on their own social services.
It is ridiculous to suggest that the economy of this country will for ever stand the expenditure of these sums of money for social services. These countries must stand on their own feet, and this money should be spent very carefully, with the largest expenditure on research and on the provision of roads and railways. I am sure that is the correct policy. As my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Down, North (Sir W. Smiles) said, the population will develop the land which lies around the railways and roads and it will eventually produce wealth.
The question is, where is the money to be found? It is obvious that the sum mentioned here is inadequate. We have to encourage the provision of money from other sources. In addition, money which is made in these countries should be ploughed back into their industry. The first thing we must give to these Colonies in which this money is to be spent is confidence in the long-term future. If there is that confidence there will be no difficulty in seeing that the money made in those countries is ploughed back for development. Exploitation will not then take place.
I want to refer to a subject mentioned by the Minister in the Debate of 9th November. As reported at Column 1243 of the OFFICIAL REPORT he said:
…if in the course of my reply in the time available I do not deal with every point which has been made—and sometimes individual cases have been raised, such as that referred to by the hon. Member for Leominster (Mr. Baldwin), and my hon. Friend the Member for Eton and Slough (Mr. Fenner Brockway), about which I want to say there will be an inquiry—…."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 9th November, 1950; Vol. 480, c. 1243.]

Has the right hon. Gentleman yet had time to make any inquiry about those points and, if not, will he make an inquiry? Will it be a public inquiry and will the results of it be published so that we know exactly where we stand in this matter?

Mr. Harrison: I think it is true to say that in every speech we have heard from hon. Members opposite today there has been used the word "inadequate." In many speeches we have heard it used three or four times. We should like some guidance on what comparison hon. Members opposite are making when they use the word "inadequate." Are they making a comparison with what has been spent in the different Colonies or are they making a comparison with what was spent before the last war among the Colonies?

Mr. Smithers: I will make it clear to the hon. Gentleman. I think I used the word "inadequate" several times, and my meaning was that the sum is not sufficient to do all the things we should like to do.

Mr. Harrison: I thought that was the meaning behind the word when the hon. Member used it. I would remind him that we are considering the expenditure of £140 million, which is a colossal sum when compared with what was spent before the war. I cannot accept the view that this sum of £140 million is inadequate. In the financial conditions of this country at the present time, in a set of circumstances in which we are burdened very seriously by the great cost of the last war, I cannot agree that £140 million is an inadequate sum.

Mr. F. Harris: Would the hon. Gentleman be kind enough to tell us what was spent before the war, as he obviously knows?

Mr. Ellis Smith: My hon. Friend will be offside if he is not careful.

The Deputy-Chairman: We cannot discuss whether the sum should be increased or decreased. We are discussing the Question "that the Clause stand part of the Bill" and it is not in order to discuss any amendments.

Mr. Harrison: Naturally, I accept your Ruling, Sir Charles. We are very pleased,


particularly on this side of the House, to think that in present circumstances the Government have been able to introduce a Bill like this.

Mr. Alport: I think, in fairness, it should be made clear that the comparison is between £120 million voted by a predominantly Conservative Parliament, with a Conservative Colonial Secretary, and £20 million voted under the present Government, with the present Colonial Secretary.

Mr. Harrison: Well, the words "predominantly Conservative" can have several interpretations. I always felt that in that Government to which the hon. Gentleman was alluding the influences were not predominantly Conservative. I am not counting the numbers. I am counting the weight of influence. [An HON. MEMBER: "Weight of intelligence"] Yes, and the weight of intelligence. I think every hon. Member of the House should congratulate the Secretary of State on this expenditure, particularly in view of the circumstances in which we in this country are living at present.

Mr. Lennox-Boyd: The only observation I want to address to the Committee arises really in part from the remarks of the hon. Member for Nottingham, East (Mr. Harrison)—or that part of his remarks which, I think, were really in order. It is not what we allot but whether or not it is spent that really matters in the British Colonial Empire, and at the present moment only about half of what the Committee thinks it has spent has, in fact been spent, though it has been allotted.
This Clause, as some hon. Members need reminding from time to time, actually increases the amount available for the Colonial Development and Welfare Fund from £20 million to £25 million annually, and the £120 million to £140 million over a 10-year period. Let us express the hope that the right hon. Gentleman—and if he does this he will, indeed, deserve congratulation—will give us an assurance that we shall be able in the period immediately before us to spend up to the sum that we are now allotting. I am very glad to feel that in the year ended 31st March, 1950, the money expended is, I believe, very little less than about the total of the sum spent in the

three previous years—I think £13 million as opposed to £14,500,000, or something of that kind. That is the main test. I hope the right hon. Gentleman, in commending the Clause to the Committee, will give us an assurance that the money we are now allotting will, in fact, be spent during the immediate future or while his party temporarily remain responsible for our affairs.

Mr. John McKay: I enter this debate in fear and trembling because I have not been in the Colonies myself, and, moreover, I am not very sure about the rules of this Committee concerning the debate; and now that I have caught your eye, Sir Charles, I shall, like many other hon. Members who have spoken, have to keep watching your eye if I am to make my few remarks without transgressing against the rules of order.
However, I feel that the business with which we are dealing at the moment comes simply to the question whether the money which is to be allocated under the Clause is thus wisely allocated. That brings me to the whole question of what need there is at the moment in the Colonies. Is there any great need to spend more money? [HON. MEMBERS: "Yes."] Of course. But let us examine the question. We can point to the necessity for education; we can point to the necessity for medical research; we can point to the necessity for greater transport; we can point to the necessity for more economic development. No matter what country in the world we consider today, whether we restrict our thoughts to the needs of our own country or whether we look abroad, we find any number of causes on which we could spend money, and upon which we could spend that money beneficially.
Therefore, when we are considering the Colonies, the question is whether it is wise to spend more money in these territories. Whether it is wise, and whether it is a necessity, to spend this money depends upon our outlook and whether we have any responsibility in those territories at all. That consideration raises the questions, why we went there, what was the cause of our going, what was the hope in which we went there. I think it must be admitted that these Colonies are now our Colonies because we forced ourselves largely upon those countries and populations.

Mr. F. Harris: No.

Mr. McKay: I do not want to raise a controversial point, but we know that when the people who had the money saw those particular lands, and thought they could invest money beneficially—

Mr. F. Harris: No.

The Deputy-Chairman: I think that this argument is going beyond the Clause. It may apply to Third Reading, but it is not in order here.

Mr. McKay: Well, Sir Charles, I think that we are taking into consideration the whole position of these Colonies and their needs. I do not think it is a question of going into details as to how we should spend the money. We know that the money is a necessity. We know it is a necessity from the social point of view; we know it is a necessity from the economic point of view; we know it is a necessity from the international point of view.
There is no question at all that we ought to pass this Clause. I am pretty confident that despite the needs of our own country, despite our economic necessity, we shall pass the Clause hoping that the Colonial Office, having more money, will not throw it about recklessly, but will spend it beneficially, it being an intelligent and patriotic Department that wants to do some good not only for the Colonies but for ourselves, and to strengthen the bonds of friendship between us. We may be confident that the Department will spend this money wisely and well.

6.0 p.m.

Mr. James Hudson: I listened to the speech of the hon. Member for Mid-Bedfordshire (Mr. Lennox-Boyd) and gathered from him what would be in order in this discussion. You had yourself said, Sir Charles, a little earlier that you had some doubt what would be in order in the discussion of this Clause, and so I was grateful for some enlightenment from the hon. Gentleman opposite. However, when he concluded his speech I was rather doubtful whether he really had been in order himself in all that he said. However, I may assume, perhaps, that I can at least try to follow in his path, and, perhaps, with your permission and guided by your sympathy, Sir Charles, I may go some distance along it.
I am under the impression that we are engaged in considering grants that we

are to make to the Colonies for development and welfare services, and particularly for purposes of research, all of which are specifically mentioned in the Clause. I feel fairly sure of my ground so far. I am guided on the question so many have raised, as to what is adequate expenditure, by a Report of what has taken place under the Colonial Development and Welfare Acts during the last 10 years or so. There is at the end of that Report—in Appendix 8—an indication of what we have spent from 1940 down to the present period, 1949–50. Although this money has not been spent under the Act that we are now discussing, at any rate there is some guide in that table to the extent to which we have been in the past willing to go in matters of research, development and welfare—the three main issues that we are now discussing.
Actually, the increase that has been made in the last few years has been remarkable. In fact, in the first year in that table, for development and welfare there was only £170,000. By the end of the 10 years we are up to £11 million. Now that we come along with this further proposal for a considerable increase I think we can congratulate ourselves and the Government on the earnestness with which they have applied themselves to these problems of development and welfare and research in the Colonies.
I should like to ask a great many other questions, but I feel that that probably would not be strictly in accordance with the rules of order governing this Debate. However, with your sympathy and understanding, Sir Charles, I want to suggest that, for all that I have seen in this Report, we have been spending a great deal more—all of us—on development than we have been spending on welfare. I was particularly glad to hear in one of the statements of the Secretary of State that he had been glad to note during a visit to some of the territories involved, how the people were looking with greater earnestness to the ideals of the welfare State, and were expecting expenditure upon things which, in the past, we tended to frown upon.
I have observed—I will not say contemptuous references—but belittling references to education by some when considering, for example, the inculcation of the principles of trade unionism in the


Colonies. But why should they not be inculcated? I have observed similar references with regard to co-operation. But why should there not be co-operation? Somebody else here mentions temperance.

Mr. P. Smithers: I asked the Secretary of State expressly to increase the grant for co-operation, not to reduce the grant for co-operation.

Mr. Hudson: Very well—

The Deputy-Chairman: Order. I do not think we should extend this argument too far. I have every sympathy and understanding, but I have to remember the rules of order.

Mr. Hudson: I am deeply grateful to you, Sir Charles. I knew you would help me as far as you could. It is a pity that I have to stop just as I am starting upon a subject of which I have some expert knowledge, and touching on how best to spend this money for the welfare of the people. I sit down with this sentence. The amount of the burden we have placed on the undeveloped races, due to the bad habits we have inculcated amongst them, is a very good reason why, amongst other things, we should try to set a barrier against the incursion of drink by our further expenditure on welfare.

The Secretary of State for the Colonies (Mr. James Griffiths): I owe the Committee an apology for not being in my place when the Committee stage began, and the hon. Member for Fife, East (Mr. Henderson Stewart), began to speak. However, one of my colleagues took a note of the earlier part of his speech, and the hon. Member, for my benefit, repeated what he said, for which I am grateful. Therefore, I think I have all the points that were raised and I shall do my best to reply to them. I hope that in doing so I shall keep within the rules of order laid down from the Chair.
First, I think it is essential that I explain the relation between this Bill and the £20 million. Under the 1945 Act the Colonial Office proceeded at once, in consultation with the Colonial Governments, to invite them to prepare, and to submit to the Office for consideration, 10-year plans for development and welfare. Those 10-year plans were from

1946 to 1956, which is the date set out in the Bill, and for which the original sum of £120 million was provided.
I think that I ought to say, because it is very important, when we come to speak about this £120 million and £20 million for Colonial Development and Welfare, how we proceed. In the plans submitted the division is roughly this. One-third of the cost of these schemes is met from funds provided from the Colonial Development and Welfare Fund, one-third is provided by Colonial Governments from their own resources, by revenue and taxation, and one-third by loan. For every £1 which we provide the Colonies themselves are providing £2. For that reason, do not let anyone get too excited about what we we are giving them.
We also retain certain sums at the centre. First, we retain a sum for research, which is of very great importance, and which we want to sustain and indeed to expand. Secondly, we keep a reserve fund of £11 million. One reason why we are putting forward this Bill which provides an additional £20 million is that we have found, particularly in the last two years, that we are getting urgent calls. For example, we had a call from Malta for another £1½ million, and some time ago we had a call from the town of Castries which was destroyed. One never knows from what field a call may come to meet a sudden emergency. We think it is essential that this £20 million should be provided as an addition until 1956.
The hon. Member for Fife, East (Mr. Stewart) asked me whether we proposed to allocate this sum. As I indicated on the Second Reading, I do not propose to allocate this £20 million, as we did the earlier sum. I referred on the Second Reading to this, and if hon. Members will refer to the Annual Report on The Colonial Territories (1949–50)—I think that the hon. Member for Ealing, North (Mr. J. Hudson), has provided himself with a copy and quoted from it—they will find that on page 153, Appendix IIIB, we have an analysis of the 10-year plans which altogether involve a capital commitment of £194,609,000. We analysed the schemes by services, and there we indicate that 19.4 per cent. of the money is to be expended on communications; 23.5 per cent. on economic quotas; 47.2 per cent. on development and social services, and 9.9 per cent. miscellaneous. Then there is the


amount out of reserve, interest charges, etc. which makes up the total. We do not propose to allocate this £20 million for one or other of these services but to use it flexibly.
I am indeed as keen as any hon. Member in this House on development and on the social services, and I repeat what I said earlier that, in this early stage, it is inevitable and essential that a big proportion—nearly one-half of the total sum—should be expended on the social services. I am anxious that with the expansion of the social services there should also be an expansion of the resources on which they can be soundly based and sustained. With regard to this further sum of £20 million, I attach considerable importance to helping to provide and strengthen the economic foundations. I am anxious for the social services to have a really solid foundation upon which they can be sustained and upon which they can be expanded, because there is an enormous need for them.
I do not want to enter into a long discussion about the C.D.C. and its future except to say that this £140 million is not the only provision we have made. General provision was made when hon. Members on the other side and we were together in government—[Interruption.] There have been some crazy schemes put forward by private enterprise in days gone by. No one could be Colonial Secretary without learning of some of the ill-advised schemes put forward by private enterprise.
6.15 p.m.
From the beginning, of course, it is an essential part of the scheme that there shall be not a rigid but a flexible division of functions between the Colonial Development Corporation and Colonial Development and Welfare. In my Second Reading speech, I indicated where they could be complementary and supplementary to each other. I do not think that the Colonial Development Corporation is sufficient in itself, and I think that we are agreed that there is a very big and increasingly important place and function for public investment in the development of the Colonial territories. I think hon. Members will agree that none of us is satisfied that private enterprise alone can do the job in other words, there must be public money. The hon. Member for Lichfield and Tamworth (Mr. Snow), who apologised for having to leave, spoke

about outlandish areas. They will not be forgotten. I welcomed the suggestion that there should be a Parliamentary delegation to these outlandish places. I think that the development of the smaller territories is one of our most important problems.
The hon. Member for Colchester (Mr. Alport) asked three questions; first, how we arrived at the figure of £20 million. It was arrived at after discussion, based on experience, between myself and the Chancellor of the Exchequer as to what sum we thought we ought to provide for these contingencies as a flexible sum. I was also asked why the plans should be limited to 1956. That is the period provided in the Act, on the basis that the money must be used in formulating and in helping with the 10-year plans—1946 to 1956.
I was also asked how far we faced the future beyond 1956. I am not prepared to go into that now, except to say that hon. Members will realise that there is a growing consciousness among the democratic nations that these are just the places where the final battles will be fought out in the lives of men. We have had the South-East Asia conference which took place recently, and the Commonwealth conference, to which non-Commonwealth countries came as well, and we are preparing plans. There is discussion about a world plan which was brought forward by one of the movements in America. It was a plan that America should put 10 per cent. or more of what was spent on World War II into a pool for world development in the future.
One day, I hope that we ourselves will propose a world plan for mutual aid. We want all possible development. There is a good deal of discussion on whether a wholly democratic world might not come together, and perhaps the best way of doing that would be by pooling resources. I think it is beyond the resources of any single country if we are to do the job in time. Please do not let us think that we have all the time we need to do this job. We are in many cases fighting against time. It may be that in this House we shall have to consider it. I am certain that we can play our part. A good many of the discussions that are taking place about plans for regions like South East Asia and Africa have their inspiration from this country.
I was also asked about research by my hon. Friends the Members for Stoke-on-Trent, Central (Dr. Stross) and Stoke-on-Trent, South (Mr. Ellis Smith). Some of this £20 million will be used, although I am not allocating any specific amount for research purposes. I am very conscious of the importance of research, research being the last thing I should want to cut. Research is of immense importance. Several Members raised particular problems in regard to research, such as clothing. Those Members who regularly attend Questions on Wednesdays will know that these matters are continually being discussed. They are very difficult problems, and I would not wish to minimise the difficulties. I am quite sure that research does pay. It is a remarkable thing, for example, that under a five-year plan in Cyprus we have been able to wipe out malaria which has plagued the Island for centuries. Malaria has been wiped out by collective action and at this moment there is a continent-wide conference in Africa preparing plans to wipe out malaria for the whole of Africa. I would be the last person to neglect research in any way.
The hon. Member for Colchester (Mr. Alport) thought I ought to apply the test of whether private capital would be attracted to make the maximum use of the resources. There is a good deal in the point he made about maximum productivity and welfare. I commend one thing that was said about the development of co-operative associations, particularly in areas where there are peasant producers. I attach enormous value to the development of co-operative associations. I was asked about the development of co-relations between the Colonial Powers. We shall do our best to co-relate as far as we possibly can. I was also asked who puts in applications. I have explained how the plans were designed and put forward, and the decision is a matter for consultation with the Colonial Governments concerned and our advisers. We have found no difficulty about that at all.
Communications are of very great importance, but they are also very costly. We are spending 20 per cent. of the total on communications under the 10-year plan. Nothing leads more to development than communications. The hon.

Member for Colchester also asked whether some of this money would be spent on developing trade unions. I would point out that, as we develop the economic life of these territories, we increase the number of men and women working for wages and not for themselves alone. As a wage system is brought in, it is necessary to have trade unions. There are now 1,000 separate trade unions in Colonial Territories, and of this number all but 30 are less than 10 years old. That is a remarkable fact. They need help and encouragement on every possible occasion, because, as we know from experience, if there is a vacuum, it is filled by something else with almost disaster to some territories.

Mr. Alport: Is there not great danger if these trade unions are forced upon industries and Colonies that are not ready for them? If the experiment fails, will not the result be to bring the trade union movement into contempt, which will do more damage in the long run to the real interests of the unions?

Mr. Griffiths: I am prepared to face that risk. I know that there are risks in over-forcing development, but I would rather take that risk than leave these wage-earners unorganised. I say that advisedly. Perhaps I might point out that the attitude towards trade unions in many Colonial Territories is not decided entirely by the people who work on the spot, but by their companies and managers. I make an appeal to some of the companies in London to co-operate more with trade unions in the Colonial Territories, and to give more latitude to their local representatives. I hope that they will do that.

The Chairman (Major Milner): I am sorry to interrupt the right hon. Gentleman. I do not know whether reference has been made to this subject matter during the debate, but it appears to be outside the scope of this Clause.

Mr. Griffiths: Not only was reference made to it, but I was asked a specific question.

Mr. Baldwin: On the question of the inquiries which the right hon. Gentleman promised, might I suggest that when he makes that inquiry, he should do so in the Colony concerned, where there has been some controversy about the statements which have been made, in order to get first-hand knowledge?

Mr. Griffiths: Yes, Sir. I gave an undertaking about that during the Second Reading debate. The inquiries are not yet complete, but I will communicate with the hon. Member when they are. I think I have covered most of the points raised, and I hope that the Committee will now agree to the Clause.

Mr. Harold Davies: Under this Clause, increased grants are being made and public and private corporations are to be welcomed in these Colonies. There is one social consequence that may result from this which will defeat our object of social benefit. If there is large-scale investment without control of the price of goods, there may be an inflationary tendency leading to detribalisation—

The Chairman: The hon. Member's remarks go far beyond the Clause.

Mr. Sorensen: Will my right hon. Friend answer the point relating to some of this extra money being devoted to welfare work for students in this country?

Mr. Griffiths: I cannot make any commitments about that. We have schemes by which we help students in this country.

Mr. Sorensen: My right hon. Friend does not exclude that possibility?

Mr. Griffiths: I would prefer to have notice of that question and to consider it.

Question put, and agreed to.

Clause ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Clause 2.—(REPEAL, IN PART, OF 3 & 4 GEO. 6. C. 40. S. 1 (5).)

6.30 p.m.

Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the Clause stand part of the Bill."

Mr. J. Enoch Powell: The Committee ought to hesitate seriously before adding this Clause to the Bill, and for reasons which are of no small constitutional importance. This Clause removes the definition of a Colony for the purposes of these Acts, as being a Colony not in possession of responsible government. There is a considerable history to this Clause. The definition of a Colony for this purpose, which is now being cancelled, did not occur for the first time in the 1940 Act, but in the 1929 Colonial Development Act, from which it was taken verbally into the 1940 Act.
The meaning of "a responsible minister" is fairly clear and definite, namely, a Minister who is responsible for his actions to some sort of elected assembly. When we use the expression "responsible government," however, a whole variety of senses may be attached to the term, because more or fewer of the ministers composing a government may be responsible in the sense I have mentioned. When this Clause first appeared in 1929, the then Lord Privy Seal, Mr. J. H. Thomas, explained that the reason for it was to exclude Southern Rhodesia. In other words, it was to exclude a Colony which is a Colony merely in name, and which, in fact, possessed full self-government. I think I am right in saying there was no doubt that that was the intention of the wording until 1947.
In 1947, by the Malta (Reconstruction) Act, an element of doubt was introduced, because that Act provided that moneys might be applied out of colonial development and welfare funds to Malta
notwithstanding its possession at any time of responsible government.
That Amendment opened up the question whether responsible government for the purposes of these Acts meant not merely full responsible self-government—in the sense in which Southern Rhodesia possessed and possesses it—but what we are accustomed to call dyarchy, because under the constitution of Malta since 1947, the subjects of defence and foreign affairs, and expenditure consequent upon these matters, remain the responsibility of the Secretary of State in this country, while in all other spheres of government the Government of Malta is autonomous.
If we look at the Colonies to which the colonial development and welfare funds have been applied up to the present, according to the list at the end of the Report, to which reference has been made so often, we find that there is no Colony, at whatever stage of development of self-government it may be, from which these funds have been withheld. In particular, grants have been made to those Colonies which the Colonial Office describe as possessing constitutions of "an advanced type." The question is, therefore, opened up as to how far it is right that grants out of the Exchequer should be made to Colonies not possessing full responsible


government—because I take it the Government's intention is not to bring Southern Rhodesia within the sphere of the Colonial Development Welfare Acts—but Colonies possessing partial responsible government.
Is there any principle by which we should be guided in deciding the matter? I think there is a very clear and well known principle by which we ought to be guided—that the House of Commons is responsible not only for determining the purposes to which moneys provided out of taxes shall be applied, but also for making sure that they have, in fact, been so applied. It is not merely the destination of the proceeds of taxation but the manner in which that destination has been observed which is the responsibility of the House of Commons, and we have no right whatsoever to amend the law in a way which removes from the House of Commons its supervision over every penny which is spent out of tax-provided moneys—not merely its destination but the manner in which it is spent.
If that principle be accepted—and I scarcely think it can be challenged from any quarter of the Committee—I believe that this consequence follows, that we cannot grant moneys out of taxes under these Acts to any territory which possesses responsible government in such a sense that the Secretary of State cannot answer to this House for the way the money has been spent. He could so answer in two ways. It may be that there are spheres of government in which the Secretary of State is still directly responsible. There. I am sure, no question could arise that these grants ought to be payable.
Secondly, the condition could be fulfilled where the governor still has reserve powers in respect of internal affairs, because then, if the governor were satisfied that these sums were being mis-applied—that is, not used as was the intention of Parliament—acting on the instructions of the Secretary of State for the Colonies, he could intervene: though I must say that it seems to me very undesirable that we should be dependent upon the governors' reserve powers—which in their very nature ought to be used as little as possible and only in emergency—for our control over moneys provided out of

taxation. At any rate, I think the conclusion must be drawn that the Secretary of State must be responsible under the constitution of the territory concerned for the manner in which the moneys have been spent and not merely for the manner in which it is intended that they should be spent.
Therefore, I disagree with the remarks of the Secretary of State on the Second Reading of the Bill that:
…it would be a very great pity indeed if…a constitutional change should take place which would prevent us from giving any money out of this fund on the grounds that the country was now enjoying responsible Government."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 9th November, 1950; Vol. 480, c. 1247.]
On the contrary, I submit that if the country concerned is enjoying responsible government in such a way that the Secretary of State cannot answer to this House for the way in which the money has been spent, then we have no right to alter the law in such a way as to make that possible.
So far from thinking that we ought to add this Clause to the Bill and lay the whole field open to the discretion of the Secretary of State, I would much rather see the original provision of the 1940 Act remain. It would then be open for the Secretary of State in a particular case to argue—and to argue to this House—that the territory to which he proposes to make grants does not possess responsible government within the meaning of the 1940 Act because he can answer to us for the way in which the moneys are spent. Unless we can be provided with that safeguard I do not think that we ought to add the Clause to the Bill.

Mr. Lennox-Boyd: The whole Committee must be indebted to my hon. Friend the Member for Wolverhampton, South-West (Mr. Powell), for raising this very important point. It would be ironical if a Bill of this nature were hurried through the House of Commons without matters of first principle in the Bill being considered. I would not say that I entirely agree with the interpretation which my hon. Friend has put upon the dangers that lie ahead, but that there are dangers I am convinced.
We are very anxious—I think this applies to everybody—not to withhold help from any British territory when it is


shown to need it and when it is desirable to give it, but the Bill is not the only means by which we can give the necessary help, and it may well be that my hon. Friend is right in suggesting that other legislative means should be found of bringing help to Colonies in more advanced stages of development.
I believe that we are all also agreed that we certainly do not want the mere suggestion—least of all, the threat—of withholding help to be used as a bargaining factor in regard to constitutional advancement. None the less, we also feel that certain considerations must reign very importantly in the mind of the Secretary of State when he comes to consider the applications for help under these schemes. I believe that he realises that it does not give any Colony that sense of self-reliance, which is a necessary requisite for responsible government, if it can count upon an annual subvention from the Parliament of the United Kingdom, and we must all hope—as we all agreed at the time of the Malta (Reconstruction) Bill—that our policy will be successful in enabling British Colonial territories, by the development of their own resources, to manage their own financial affairs. I am sure that that consideration will always remain in the mind of the right hon. Gentleman.
An equally important consideration was mentioned by my hon. Friend. The Secretary of State must remain answerable in this House for the expenditure of money which this House has voted. I take it that the statement made by the right hon. Gentleman during the Second Reading debate on 9th November, in HANSARD, column 1248, means that we would be allowed to ask Parliamentary Questions as to what has happened to the money that this House has voted under the Colonial Development and Welfare Act. We must remember that the amount of money available is limited and that if we give to one territory, there is so much less to give to another. Therefore, it is important that we should retain the right to ask Parliamentary Questions about this.
When a scheme comes forward, as presumably these schemes always will, in the annual Blue Book of schemes submitted under the Colonial Development and Welfare Act, discussion should take place on every such scheme. The obvious time

would be the annual Colonial Debate, which usually follows fairly quickly the publication of the Blue Book. We must be as free to discuss in equally great detail the affairs of any Colony to which grants have been made and the affairs of any other Colony. When the Secretary of State is considering and agreeing to applications from a Colony in an advanced state of colonial government, or approaching such a state, he should make it plain at the time that the grant is being made, that the House of Commons must retain its right to discuss the destination of the money and how it has been spent. If it is left until some objection is raised there is a chance that it might be regarded as an interference with the domestic affairs of a Colony with responsible government.
I wish the Clause had not been included, but I think that its exclusion at this stage would have more harmful consequences than its retention in the Bill. The decision must lie with the Secretary of State at the time, and I hope we can rely on the right hon. Gentleman, as I am sure we could on any successor from these benches, to apply sensible considerations and to see that Parliamentary control is maintained.

6.45 p.m.

Sir Richard Acland: I do not doubt that the Secretary of State will defend the Clause very adequately, but I think a word ought to come from behind him in answer to the case which has been made. I must apologise in advance to the hon. Member for Wolverhampton, South-West (Mr. Powell), that if a visitor arrives at the hour that I expect, I may not be able to remain for the whole of this discussion.
Before objecting seriously to the Clause we ought to look at the powers which my right hon. Friend still has and the extent to which we in the House shall be able to call him to account if the Clause stands part. He will, of course, have to consider each project which is put forward, and it will be his responsibility to decide whether money, and, if so, how much, shall be devoted to it. If thereafter it appears to the House that he has allowed our money to be spent on what he could and should have seen to be an irresponsible kind of scheme—a kind in which the money was likely to be frittered away—we should be able to


censure him after the event and call for his dismissal and in this way exercise control. Therefore, a very great degree of control remains in the hands of my right hon. Friend and his successors and of the House if the Clause is approved; and I hope it will be.
The hon. Member for Wolverhampton, South-West, said that it is not enough that we should at the outset of a scheme decide whether it is the kind of scheme on which our money should be spent and that we must never commit our money to any scheme unless we are sure that, throughout the whole period of the operation of the scheme, we, and we only, will have the complete power of deciding how the scheme shall be carried through.
Let me give some examples of what might happen between now and 1956. Let us imagine that it seems desirable to make a contribution to the cost of very substantial educational development on the Gold Coast. We should not have complete control of the way in which that money would be spent. If all goes well, education will be one of the, subjects within the power of a Gold Coast Minister of Education responsible to a Gold Coast Legislative Assembly, and, I think I am right in saying, without reserve powers in the hands of the Governor to interfere in the details. We might also imagine a substantial agricultural scheme in the Caribbean or some development in Honduras involving the movement of populations and so on. I understand that in the very near future a Minister of Agriculture for Jamaica will be responsible to the Jamaica Assembly, and, therefore, any project connected with Jamaica could not come under the detailed control of this House.
If in those circumstances, where we had the initial power to say whether the money should be spent on the scheme, we are unwilling to entrust the detailed control to ministers who are responsible to the appropriate legislative assemblies in our Colonial Territories which are growing from infancy through adolescence to independent manhood, it is an example of suspicion and lack of trust in our Colonial fellow citizens which seems to me to militate a great deal against their harmonious development into independent members of the British Commonwealth of Nations. I should very much

regret if the Clause were omitted for the reasons advanced by the hon. Member for Wolverhampton, South-West.

Mr. Sorensen: I believe that the real difficulty arises out of the meaning of the word "responsible." If we look at the Preamble we see that the object of the Clause is fairly clear. I gather that because the term "responsible" has never been clearly defined, the Minister wants to protect himself against any possibility of finding himself having to spend money upon some Colony which has advanced to a stage where it has been called responsible but in present circumstances would not be entitled to such assistance. That would be one of the border-line cases which are bound to arise owing to the peculiar nature of our Colonial development. In one sense we could say that there can be no completely responsible government until a government is as independent as those of our Dominions, of India or Pakistan. It could be said that responsible government in the fullest sense of the word, does not exist so long as there is some kind of veto, direct or indirect and that such a government is only partly responsible.
There are all kinds of grades and shades of meaning to the word "responsible." There is the stage at the very beginning where there is no kind of responsibility or representation given to the indigenous inhabitants. The next stage is where there is some kind of representation of an official character which becomes more and more unofficial until it approaches the time when there is a majority in the local legislative and administrative bodies actually drawn from the locality. They may be elected, and we may leave the governor with the power of veto as in the case of Jamaica.
One quite appreciates the dilemma of the Secretary of State in this connection. Here are moneys which he wishes to spend on developing colonial areas. He knows full well that there may come a stage at which a particular Colony assumes a large measure of responsible government and that makes him very dubious whether that Colony should receive financial assistance. In order to cover himself and to meet the general wishes of the House of Commons he has included this Clause.
I hope that we shall not be slow about giving assistance to the Secretary of


State in these matters. I entirely appreciate the motives and doubts in the minds of hon. Gentlemen opposite and I admit that the present position is an anomaly, but I do not think that other legislation than this would remove it, because it involves the nature of our colonial development. These proposals are interim proposals because nobody really suggests that this country will transfer money indefinitely into the future to colonial areas. We do not do it in regard to our Dominions because they are self-governing, independent and autonomous. We do it only to those which are in some way subordinate to us.
Can we not conceive the proposals of the Bill as in the nature of interim financial proposals which are urgently required in order to encourage colonial development to the stage when the Colonies will have no need for further assistance from this country and can stand on their own feet?

Mr. Walter Fletcher: I do not think that the hon. Member can brush aside an example such as we have had in Burma where after receiving self-government, they still received a considerable amount of financial assistance from this country.

Mr. Sorensen: I was not ignoring that example but I would say that nothing will prevent this country advancing money to a Colony that becomes completely independent if it decides to do so, just as money was advanced in the way that the hon. Gentleman has mentioned. At the present time we are dealing with the development of areas and peoples still not independent and because that development is in various stages, I cannot see how we can possibly deal with the peculiar difficulties arising out of that fact unless we adopt this Clause. We must recognise that the term "responsible" means not merely full independence but some stage lower than that. Otherwise, whatever legislation we introduce we shall get into the same difficulty. I hope we shall extend recognition of that difficulty to the Minister, and will support the Clause.

Mr. Alport: I dislike the Clause as it stands but for somewhat different reasons from those advanced by my hon. Friend the Member for Wolverhampton, South-West (Mr. Powell). I assumed from the statements made by the Secretary of State

during the Second Reading that the object of the Clause was to enable him to continue to support schemes which might have been inaugurated in a Colony before it got responsible government. It presumably does not apply to a Colony which already has responsible government, such as Southern Rhodesia, nor to a Colony which, as in the case of Newfoundland, has reverted from Dominion to dependent status. Their problems would be dealt with not through the Colonial Welfare and Development Fund but in quite a different manner. It seems injudicious to insist that we should be able to criticise and apply the same degree of supervision to money spent by a Colony immediately after reaching responsible government as we did before that stage was reached.
It would be asking for trouble, to use the words of the Lord President of the Council, if, amid all the enthusiasm at the arrival of a Colony at the stage of self-government, we were to continue to try to exercise the same surveillance over the details of a welfare and development scheme which was in the process of being worked out. The point on which I am not clear is how far the Secretary of State intends that money should be applied to new schemes inaugurated in Colonies which have not responsible government but which may get it very soon. I should have thought that the Colonial Welfare and Development Fund would not be affected and that the necessity to aid a Colony which has already received responsible government, would be met in quite a different manner. Therefore I should think the Clause is not necessary.
There is one last reason. I have said that I do not think we should try to continue to survey the details of the administration of moneys allocated to a Colony after it has got responsible government when, presumably, it will have reached a state of political development which will enable it to carry through schemes and to employ in a responsible manner the money that we have voted. We should be prepared to give them the benefit of any help they may need, when a scheme has to be carried over from the period of representative government to the period of responsible government, and when the management of the money provided by us for that scheme should be left entirely in the hands of the colonial government concerned.

7.0 p.m.

Mr. J. Griffiths: We had a discussion upon this Clause on the Second Reading. I want to repeat what I said then, that there is no question here of extending the scope of the Act and bringing into its ambit territories which would have been excluded. We have the position that these Colonies are developing stage by stage towards responsible government. I would not attempt to define what "responsible government" means, but in 1947 when me Malta Bill was brought forward the view was taken that Malta might be held, because of its constitution, to have responsible government within the C.D.W. Act.
I thought, therefore, that it was desirable to include the Clause and to do what it does in the Bill, so that where a territory reaches the stage at some time in the future between now and 1956, which is the period covered, at which it might be held to have responsible government, I should not at that moment have to take away money which was part of money which had been allocated to a scheme which was developing. We would all agree that to do that at that stage would certainly be undesirable. At the same time, let me assure hon. Members that if the Clause is accepted the accountability of the Secretary of State to Parliament remains unaltered in every way.

Mr. Sorensen: Do I take it, therefore, that Jamaica is held to have responsible self-government? If so, are we still able to ask questions in the House regarding the expenditure of moneys in Jamaica that have been advanced through the Colonial Development and Welfare Fund?

Mr. Griffiths: I am speaking of the accountability of the Secretary of State under the Act for these funds, and not in any wider sense. The way in which the Act operates helps in that the Secretary of State does not have to say that he will give x millions to a Colonial territory, but has a scheme put before him for a specific object; he has to approve that scheme and that object, and to give a grant of money to see that that object is attained. It would, therefore, be the duty and the responsibility of the Secretary of State in making new grants, if he does so at one of the intermediate stages, to continue to ensure that the money which is voted by Parliament for this purpose

is allocated to a particular scheme of which he approves, and also to see that the money is spent on that scheme. To that extent, the Secretary of State would be accountable to Parliament.
Therefore, in deciding that the Secretary of State must have before him from the outset a specific object for his approval, it is quite clear that he is able to satisfy Parliament, to whom he is accountable, that money which has been voted for a specific purpose has, in fact, been spent on that purpose.

Mr. Powell: Would the right hon. Gentleman explain how he can be accountable to Parliament for the way in which a sum has been spent under the jurisdiction of a responsible Minister in a Colony?

Mr. Griffiths: Because the Secretary of State has to approve the scheme, has to approve a grant for a specific purpose, and must satisfy himself that that purpose is carried out. This is a matter which can be dealt with, with some flexibility, on a basis of understanding between the Secretary of State and the Colonial Office and the Colonial territories; I am sure that that can be done. That is better than the Secretary of State having to come here and say, "I am now advised that Colony A has reached the stage where it might be held to have responsible Government, and I must either stop this grant or come to the House and get a Bill, as was done in the case of Malta in 1947." I am sure that all hon. Members would appreciate that that would be the worst way of handling this situation.
The way which we propose in Clause 2, whilst it retains the responsibility and accountability of the Secretary of State to Parliament and certainly provides all the other Parliamentary safeguards for which the hon. Member for Mid-Bedfordshire (Mr. Lennox-Boyd), asked, is, I am certain, the best one. That is why we decided, after full consultation, to embody the Clause in the Bill, and I hope that this explanation satisfies hon. Members opposite on its intention and purpose.

Question put, and agreed to.

Clause ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Clause 3 ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Schedule agreed to.

Bill reported without Amendment; to be read the Third time Tomorrow.

SOLICITORS BILL

Considered in Committee, and reported without Amendment; to be read the Third time Tomorrow.

ESTIMATES COMMITTEE

Mr. William Wells discharged from the Select Committee on Estimates and Mr. Jenkins added.—[Mr. Bowden.]

NATIONAL INSURANCE (SEASONAL WORKERS)

The following Motion stood upon the Order Paper in the ame of Mr. CARSON:
That an humble Address be presented to His Majesty, praying that the Regulations, dated 25th July, 1950, entitled the National Insurance (Seasonal Workers) Regulations, 1950 (S.I. 1950, No. 1220), a copy of which was laid before this House on 25th July, be annulled.

7.4 p.m.

Mr. Speaker: I am unable to call the Prayer which appears on the Order Paper. My attention has been drawn specially to the composition of Statutory Instrument, 1950, No. 1220, which is the subject of the Motion in the name of the hon. Member for the Isle of Thanet (Mr. Carson). There are four regulations in the Statutory Instrument. Two of these have already been approved in draft by this House and also by another place. The remaining two are wholly different in character, for they are regulations of the type that are not laid before this House in draft but are immediately operative when made and are subject to annulment within 40 days by Resolution of the House. I think that the whole four regulations have now been laid before this House in a single Statutory Instrument, indivisible and, apparently, subject as a whole to annulment, which is what the Motion on the Order Paper seeks to do.
I must rule that, as this House must not be put in a false position of being asked to annul regulations which have already been approved, a composite Statutory Instrument in this present form cannot be received by the House, nor can it be debated, either affirmatively or with a view to annulment.

Mr. Carson: On a point of order. With great respect, Mr. Speaker, this is a very important statement by you. I have always understood that a Statutory Instrument drawn in this way was liable to be prayed against. This, I respectfully submit, is a very important question. It is a denial, or it can be a denial, of hon. Members' rights to pray against Statutory Instruments of a normal character, and if other composite Statutory Instruments are similarly drawn, the right of a Member of Parliament to pray against orders will be severely compromised I suggest that this sort of order should not be allowed to come before the House if it is not allowable to pray against it.

Mr. Speaker: I think that the hon. Member missed my point. As he said in his last words, this order ought not to come before the House—that is exactly what I have said. The opportunity to pray against what the House has not passed will he the right of the hon. Member who put the Prayer down. In the meantime, this order is not one which can be received by the House. We should not have discovered this if the hon. Member had not put down the Prayer; therefore, we are grateful to him.

Mr. William Teeling: May I have your guidance on this point, Mr. Speaker? What is to be the position of one's constituents who are at present in the position of not being allowed to get unemployment benefit, when their seasonal work has been during the summer and now it is winter time? Does this mean that the Minister will be asked to bring forward another order, or shall we be in the position that the first order is illegal?

Mr. Speaker: The Ministry will have to bring forward another order. The present position is that this order cannot be laid before the House. I have ruled that it is not acceptable.

Mr. Teeling: But what is the position of my constituents who are not being allowed their unemployment benefit?

Mr. Speaker: I cannot help that; it is a matter for the Minister concerned.

The Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of National Insurance (Mr. Bernard Taylor): May I thank you, Sir, for the statement you have made to the


House? We are all greatly indebted for your guidance. I want to make only a short observation. There are difficulties in the making of regulations under the provisions of the National Insurance Act, 1946. My right hon. Friend was advised by the appropriate authorities that the presentation of these regulations in this form would be for the convenience of all concerned. However, my right hon. Friend will endeavour in future to present such regulations in a different form.

Mr. Carson: I am not clear what the position will be. Will another order be laid, against which we can pray, or will the Government try to lay an order within the terms of the National Insurance Act, against which we cannot pray?

Mr. Speaker: There are two orders which can be prayed against. There are two which have been passed in draft which cannot be prayed against, because they have been passed by both Houses of Parliament.

Commander Maitland: Does what has happened today mean that the points in this order are not legal, and that everything contained in it is not the law of the land?

Mr. Speaker: Those sections which have been passed by both Houses of Parliament are the law—they have been passed—and therefore they cannot be prayed against. The other two sections which are left can be prayed against within 40 days.

Mr. C. S. Taylor: I do not know whether it would be permissible to raise this as a point of procedure. Surely, in view of the muddle which has been occasioned, quite unwittingly, by the Government in this matter, it would be fairer to withdraw the original orders and to keep the new set of orders before the House so that we might have an opportunity of raising the matter in Debate.

Mr. Speaker: That is exactly what I thought the Parliamentary Secretary said. This order cannot be presented; it does not have to be withdrawn, because it cannot be here. The Minister now must re-present another order embodying the two which can be prayed against.

Sir Peter Macdonald: On a point of order. This question goes much further than has been stated so far. Not only are people to be deprived of their benefit, for which they have been contributing for two years, but this is retrospective for two years; people have to be registered under the category of casual labour for two years. That is quite unheard of so far as I know in Parliamentary orders of this kind.

Mr. Speaker: The merits of the order do not arise here, because the order does not exist—it has not been laid. The merits no doubt will be discussed when the order again is laid.

Mr. C. S. Taylor: Would the Minister make it quite clear to the country as a whole, that from now until this matter has been cleared up, people who are not being allowed their unemployment insurance benefit will not be asked to go on to Public Assistance?

Mr. B. Taylor: I am very much in your hands, Mr. Speaker. You have given a definite Ruling that these regulations cannot be discussed tonight. Until they have been relaid, they cannot be discussed.

Mr. Teeling: Have you not said, Mr. Speaker, that this order is not valid?

Mr. Carson: Further to that point of order. If the last two sections are not valid, the first two are not valid either, because they are embodied in the order.

Mr. Speaker: We must see what is in the new order when it is laid. That can be retrospective also, I have no doubt.

Mr. Carson: What is the legal position until then?

Mr. Speaker: I am afraid I cannot give that answer; it is not my business.

Mr. C. S. Taylor: It appears to me that the first two sections are valid because they have been in a previous order. There have been faults on both sides in this matter; we neglected to raise the matter in debate in this House on the first two sections, and the Government have made a slip on the present order. I submit to the Government that the generous action they might take is to say they will produce a completely new order, embodying


all these matters, thus giving hon. Members an opportunity of debating the order, and withdraw the earlier orders.

Mr. Speaker: I am afraid that would be impossible as the earlier sections have been passed by both Houses of Parliament. We cannot amend orders that have been passed; we can only annul these two which can be prayed against in 40 days.

Sir P. Macdonald: May I ask the Parliamentary Secretary when his Ministry will lay the new order, as that is very vital?

Mr. B. Taylor: I cannot answer at this stage. I am very much in the hands of Mr. Speaker, who has given a Ruling by which I must abide.

Mr. Teeling: For the last five days it has been known by the Ministry that this order was to be prayed against and every effort has been made by the Ministry to stop the order being prayed against. Surely they have had time to come to a conclusion?

Mr. Speaker: There was no effort by the Ministry to stop the discussion; it was because we discovered that it was out of order and it was just as much a surprise to the Ministry, I have no doubt, as it was to the hon. Member. Now we are wise in the matter I do not mind telling hon. Members that there have been five orders of this kind which have got through. They were not opposed and it did not matter, but now, thanks to the Prayer, we have discovered a loophole and the matter must be looked into.

Commander Maitland: Are not these examples of the great harm done by governing by regulation?

Mr. C. S. Taylor: I do not want to be a nuisance, but I want fair shares for all. It appears to me that the Government are at perfect liberty to withdraw the previous orders, or even to ask for them to be annulled and then to produce a completely new order embodying all the powers and give hon. Members an opportunity of raising the matter in debate. I admit there have been mistakes on both sides, but I ask the Government to be generous about the matter and give us an opportunity for debate.

Mr. B. Taylor: I will convey the remarks of the hon. Member to my right hon. Friend.

Mr. Teeling: Although it may look as if this is a large sum, involving a large number of people, in actual fact it is not. It is only a matter of allowing people to show they have not much work to do in the coming months. It would not hurt the Government if they were to allow the matter to drop.

Mr. Speaker: The matter is not for me. I was concerned only with whether the order was in order or not, and I have found that it is not. No doubt a new order will be presented and it will be possible to pray against it.

Motion made, and Question proposed, "That this House do now adjourn."—[Mr. Bowden.]

EXPERIMENTAL FARMS

7.20 p.m.

Mr. Peter Smithers: When a back bench Member of this House has the good fortune to be able to intervene in two debates on the same day and on the second debate is able to initiate an Adjournment discussion so early in the evening at a time when some hon. Members, if fortunate enough to catch your eye, may join in the discussion, he must reflect that "It never rains but it pours." The only additional reflection I would make is that it very seldom rains.
I am raising tonight the topic of Government agricultural experimental farms. I hope the Minister will welcome the occasion to discuss these farms. I should like to make quite clear that as far as I am concerned and, I anticipate, most, if not all, hon. Members on this side of the House we are heartily in favour of the type of work which is being undertaken. It must be obvious in present circumstances when our agricultural production is being forced to the highest possible pitch that research is more important than ever.
I think it must be equally evident that much of the research done on these farms is of a nature which could not today be undertaken from private resources. So I hope the Minister will take it from me that I am not in any way contesting the desirability of this work or impugning


the efficiency with which it is, in general, conducted. I would also make it clear that I am not raising the problems of the individual farm which happens to be in my constituency, except in order to illustrate general points which I anticipate apply to the majority of these farms.
I have given the Minister notice of four of the main points which I propose to raise. The first point about which I want to ask some questions is how the funds allocated to these farms are distributed. It is very seldom that these farms get any national publicity. The best national publicity they have had for a long time was when the Lord President of the Council made a speech at Taunton, which was reported in "The Times" on 25th September this year. The Lord President said:
A chain of 13 experimental husbandry farms is to be set up by the Ministry of Agriculture at which new methods of research can be tried out on a field scale under controlled conditions.
He went on to say that in 1950 and 1951 the expenditure on agricultural research would be of the order of £3 million. It would be useful if the Minister could tell us what proportion of the £3 million he expects these farms to enjoy and, roughly speaking, what are the principles which guide the allocation of the funds as between one farm and another. Incidentally, I should be grateful if he would confirm that the Lord President's figure of approximately £3 million is a correct one.
The second point I would ask the Minister about is the allocation of functions between the different experimental farms. Our farm in the Winchester division, for example, is a chalk farm and I take it that the particular problems of chalk farming are the problems mainly under study there. I hope he will go further and give some kind of sketch of the coverage of research work at these 13 establishments.
The third question is about farm accounts. I put down a number of Parliamentary Questions to the right hon. Gentleman during the summer directed to eliciting information as to the manner in which the funds expended on these farms were laid out and subsequently accounted for. The Minister gave certain information on particular problems, but he denied that there was any necessity for the publication of the accounts of indivi-

dual farms. It must be apparent to anyone who visits one of these farms that a very large amount of capital is sunk in them. I am not complaining of that; I think it is probably quite right. Certainly that amount of capital is much greater than that of many private concerns which are under an obligation to publish their accounts.
On the farm in my constituency, at least, there is a skilled accountant employed on the staff. Incidentally, he is not very comfortably housed; the cows, in my opinion, are considerably better off and it would be nice if something could be done to help him. These accountants are very competent people and from every point of view it is desirable that we should know the manner in which these funds are administered and the expenses of the various experiments undertaken.
This is not in any way to suggest that they are undesirable experiments, but as a matter of principle it is desirable that we should understand their financial basis. If the Minister is anxious, as I hope he is to disarm local criticism—criticism which has, for example, occurred in my division—much of it I think ill-founded criticism, about alleged extravagance on these farms. I suggest that the publication of accounts is one simple and sensible method of doing it.
In Parliamentary Questions the Minister made the response to my asking for accounts that these farms are comparable with ordinary farms and are not intended to be profit-making, and that therefore there is little point in the publication of accounts. I do not think that argument holds good. We all know that these farms are likely in themselves to be uneconomical. The whole point is that they should carry out research work which, because it might involve a loss, cannot be carried out by private individuals, but I hope the Minister will not advance that argument as a reason for withholding accounts. I hope he will tell me that he will arrange for accounts to be published for these farms so that we can study them and secure the maximum benefit of seeing how the money is allocated.
Another point I should like to be made clear is this. His Ministry is responsible for some of the things which are done on these farms, particularly for the work of sub-contractors. In the case of the Martyr Worthy farm in my division


there was an incident where a sub-contractor made some bad mistakes, to which I will not refer in detail as I do not want to revive what has now healed. I asked the Minister some Questions about these mistakes and whether instructions could be given to see that they are not repeated. The Minister told me on two occasions that he had no power to give instructions. I ask him to make it clear where the final say in the matter rests. Is it in the committee, or does not the committee have an over-riding authority under the Agriculture (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act?

The Joint Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Agriculture (Mr. George Brown): Will the hon. Gentleman agree that the point which caused the trouble there was the direction of the wind and it is difficult for my right hon. Friend to give instructions about that?

Mr. Smithers: I would not agree about that at all. What I asked the Minister to do was to have these sub-contracting operations take place sufficiently far from the edges of the farms to see that people's gardens were not sprayed with weed killer. His reply was not about the wind, or that he could not control it, but that he had no power to give directions. I have the quotation here if the hon. Gentleman wants it. I want the Minister to say who has the power to say to a contractor that he shall carry out his work in this or that manner. It is quite a simple point which I hope he will elucidate because I suspect that the Minister gave a wrong answer to this House.
My last and rather important point refers to the policy of the Ministry with regard to afforestation and sylviculture on these farms. Perhaps I may say that the farmers and the farming community are by no means the only people who live in the countryside, and what is the place of work for the farming community is also home to a still larger number of people. I am sure the Minister will agree that he wants to carry with him in the operations of the Ministry the approbation and support of those amongst whom these operations go on. The hon. Gentleman will be aware, from questions I have asked him, that in my part of the country, the Upper Itchen Valley, there has been considerable disquiet about afforestation and sylviculture.
It is not just a question of replanting. There is really no reason why these farms

should not be run in such a way that, instead of arousing the antagonism of people who live near them, they should be models of good practice, not only in farming operations but also in afforestation and sylvicultural matters. For example, the very competent manager in charge of the farm in my Division says quite frankly that he is a farmer. I believe he is farming very well, but he does not know much, if anything, about trees. I suggest to the Minister that he should employ somebody who is knowledgeable about sylviculture to go round these farms and see that this loose end is properly tied up. I know there are plans for planting shelter belts and that in some places those are well advanced. That is admirable, but I am also much concerned about the maintenance of standing timber and specimen trees.
In our part of the country, as the Minister will perhaps know from a recent visit, we have scattered here and there yew trees of immemorial age, many of them 400 or 500 years old. We know that they are nuisance to the farmer. Nevertheless they are a nuisance which can be overcome without their being cut down. I hope the Minister will believe me when I say that when we see an ancient specimen tree felled it makes most of us very angry indeed. So I hope he will put on to the job of inspecting these experimental farms somebody who will make sure that everything possible is done to preserve the amenities of the countryside. If he does that, he will carry with him the goodwill and support of the neighbours instead of having a good deal of local trouble.
I have made my requests clear and specific. I hope the Minister will take any remarks coming from myself and my hon. Friends on this side of the House as intended to be helpful, as they are. Recently I applied to his Ministry for permission to visit the farm in my division and to take with me my hon. Friend the Member for Guildford (Mr. Nugent). We had a most profitable morning, although I could have wished we had spent the whole day walking round instead of swishing round behind a tractor. Without forewarning us, the Minister came down the next day and made a separate tour around the farm. I see the hon. Gentleman looking surprised, Of course there was no obligation on him


to warn us, but I suggest it would have been courteous and helpful to let us know, and we might have gone together to inspect the farm. I believe that a considerable benefit would have derived to both of us if we could have discussed this problem instead of the Minister behaving in that slightly shabby fashion.

Mr. G. Brown: Perhaps the hon. Gentleman will develop this attack a little. The hon. Gentleman came to me—quite apart from the fact that I had to be in that part of the country for altogether different reasons, fixed up well in advance—after he had made a particularly ill-informed attack, and said he wanted to look around. As a matter of fact I think it was his hon. Friend who came to me. I gave full authority for him to go round, and I went to great trouble to see that those facilities were laid on when he chose to go. He gave me no indication of when he was choosing to go. Had he given me some indication of the date. I would have told him that I should be there the day after.

Mr. Smithers: That is all very plausible but it happens to be quite incorrect. I wrote to the Minister of Agriculture applying for permission and gave him the date on which I would like to go. So the hon. Gentleman knew precisely, and he himself turned up the next day—

Mr. Brown: Oh, no.

Mr. Smithers: That is perfectly correct. I should be glad to produce the letters to the hon. Gentleman, though I have not got them with me. He could very well have arranged, if he had cared, to go on the same day as myself and I am sorry he did not. I would have been glad to change the date to suit his convenience. I would not make too much of this point except that I am stressing the fact that we are anxious to help the Minister and I hope he will not—as I think he is inclined to do—take it in a bad spirit when we raise the matter in this House.

7.37 p.m.

Mr. Nugent: I am sure the House will be grateful to the hon. Member for Winchester (Mr. Peter Smithers) for raising this matter, which is one of outstanding interest to the farming community in particular and, therefore by

implication, to the community as a whole. I believe these experimental farms will do a valuable job, and although I do not agree with every detail of his speech, in substance we are indebted to my hon. Friend for bringing this subject forward for discussion. I do not take any umbrage because the Parliamentary Secretary came the day after us, though naturally I thought he had judged his moment well because he stole the local Press and we did not get it. But I would not hold the hon. Gentleman to account for that.
I hope we shall get full reports from these experimental farms, the purpose of which is to carry out on a commercial scale the work performed on a laboratory scale in the research departments. This is a link we have sadly missed up to date—the translation into practical form of the work done by our scientists in their laboratories. There is a tremendous value in bringing these experimental ideas into a commercial perspective before they are advocated for general use in the farming world. I am sure everybody appreciates that, and would welcome full reports of what is done.
Obviously if work is done in a laboratory on, say, nutrition, we want to try it out on a complete dairy herd for two or perhaps five years in order to see how the herd continues to milk and what the progeny appears like after we have given them that particular form of nutrition. Therefore, these farms are a valuable link in showing in practical form what the scientist is trying to show in the way of new ideas. We would much sooner see that work undertaken on experimental farms at the cost of the public purse than that the individual farmer should take the risk of trying new ideas without them being previously tried out on a commercial scale.
I hope that we shall get very full reports of what is done, but I would not expect to see accounts of the actual profit and loss operations of the farms, because that is not the experiment for which the farms were set up. If there is an experiment of trying out a particular kind of management to see whether it is more or less profitable than another one, we would of course expect to see a profit and loss account for that particular experiment. But I think that we should handicap the operations, particularly of an experimental farm, if it was thought they had to show


a profit on the whole of their farming operations.
The kind of tests that we hope to see should cover the whole of farming activities. As the hon. Gentleman knows, we are in some respects deficient especially in some of the livestock fields; particularly, perhaps, in the field of pigs and poultry. I would urge, and I think hon. Members on this side of the House would urge with enthusiasm, that we want to see all the stations, of which I think there are now seven or eight, set up and in full operation. We want to hear their reports and see the practical value of the various experiments which have been done in the laboratories about which we do not know much on the practical scale.
In a general way, while I feel I would like to see full and regular reports of their activities, I do not feel there would be any advantage in having accounts presented, but full and detailed reports would be of the greatest value to the farming community as a whole, and I hope they may even appear in a compiled form for this House to study.

7.42 p.m.

Mr. Dye: I am grateful to the hon. Member for Winchester (Mr. Peter Smithers) for raising this matter. He has been fortunate in being able to raise it at a time when there is ample opportunity to give full consideration to experimental farms. But I am somewhat surprised that both he and the hon. Member for Guildford (Mr. Nugent) are talking about these experimental farms as if they were something new; whereas, in fact of course, there have been experimental farms in the country for many years, and they have done good work. It is true that the Lord President mentioned in a speech quite recently that the Government had a big programme of experimental farms to cover the different aspects of agricultural production over the country as a whole. When it is actually working they will be able to try out and demonstrate new methods of farming, and there is a very wide field in which they can undertake work in that respect.
We have these experimental farms, particularly in Norfolk, at Sprowston, in connection with the sugar beet industry, and I think that they have now found just the right method of producing the greatest

amount of sugar beet. Sugar is an essential item in the national diet, and one which we want to see increased. They have, therefore, done very good work indeed. There are other problems now confronting farming as a whole, on which we should like to see further experimental work carried out, and not only experimental work, but demonstrations as a result of which the farming community can quickly put new ideas into practice.
One of those problems must be the elimination of weeds among all growing crops. Surely we ought to have got past the experimental stage in this matter. It is very disappointing to go up and down the country and to see cornfields with poppies, charlock and other annual weeds, when it is known that they can be destroyed without causing any harm to the corn; in fact, it improves the crops. Could not these experimental farms demonstrate that fact, and also the fact that it is an economic proposition to eliminate these weeds?
Most of the work so far in this respect has been done by one or other of the big companies which have specialised in such matters. But I would look forward to the time when poppies, charlock and other annual and even perennial weeds are eliminated from our farmland. These experimental farms should take up that problem and illustrate how that can be done from the point of view of cost and the benefit which would accrue to the farmer and the community in general. I should have thought that was one of the lines on which we ought to concentrate a very big effort—the elimination of injurious weeds of all kinds from corn and other growing crops, and also from our grassland, so that we may get a much bigger production of grass, corn, beet and everything else.
I should like to see the National Advisory Service, together with our experimental farms, take up this problem in real earnest and try to demonstrate to the farming community that it is a reflection on them to have farms infested with weeds. In some small countries, such as Holland, a high standard of farming has been in operation for many years, and weeds are very scarce indeed. But as we look over parts of England it is a reflection on our farming ability that so many weeds are to be seen.
There is the ever-present problem of pests, rats and rabbits. Surely by now we ought to have found the answer to the problem of how to eliminate them, because they are a menace to our food production. Can the Minister tell us in what way these experimental farms have tackled this problem, or whether his officers of the National Advisory Service have carried out experiments on the actual farms with a view to mastering this menace to food production? In debates in this House we have heard in the past the extent of the problem caused by the destruction of food by these pests, and I doubt whether we could measure the spread of disease and other problems which arise from them. Yet we can go to parts of the country where there seem today to be as many rats as ever there have been.
We must study the problem of the destruction of these vermin. I hope those responsible for directing the operations of the experimental farms and stations up and down the country will direct their attention to this problem as one of the most important that can be tackled. I also hope that the Minister may be able to indicate whether they are setting out on this problem so that by 1960 we can look forward to the time when there is not a single rat in the country. We can manage very well without them. They make no contribution whatever to our welfare, and absorb a good deal of food, and we have spent a great deal of time and energy in trying to combat them.
There are other matters with which we are now confronted. One is how to increase our meat production in the country with the same, or perhaps a smaller labour force. The old method of feeding stock took a good deal of labour. Now we have to try to make the best use of what labour is available and at the same time to increase the amount of meat which we are producing on our farms. A few months ago there was a conference in Norfolk on this particular problem. They brought before us probably the best experts on animal husbandry. It seemed to me that they had not the answer to the problems of how we can increase beef production in the most economical way, from the point of view of labour as well as finance, and how we can meet the requirements of the consumer in this respect. Has the Minister, through the

system of experimental farms, set out to demonstrate how we can produce greater quantities of beef, pork, mutton and poultry, so that we can show through our farming community that both from the point of view of quantity and quality, Britain can produce more food from her land?
I want to see a greater enthusiasm in this respect generated through the National Advisory Agricultural Service and through our experimental farms which would penetrate to every county and every farm. It is that enthusiasm which is needed in food production today. I would like the Minister to indicate, if he can, some of the ways in which these experimental farms will get on quickly with the task of leading the farming community along the lines of greater production in a more economical way.

7.54 p.m.

Mr. Crouch: I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Winchester (Mr. Peter Smithers) on bringing this matter forward, because while I welcome the experimental farms I am concerned that unless we are careful they are likely to develop into county research stations. I do not think that was the intention of the Minister when he started this programme of having a great number of experimental farms.
So far as research work is concerned, we are very well served by the research stations which have been in existence for some considerable time. I shall mention but three. At Cambridge excellent work has been done in the research on production of better varieties of cereals. At Aberystwith there is a tremendous amount of work going on for the production of better grass and we have been able in a large number of instances, as a result of that research work, to grow two blades of grass where only one grew before. If we go over to Berkshire, we find we have an excellent research station there for livestock. The time is not too far distant when it will provide us with the answer to the question that has been worrying livestock farmers for such a long time—the means of dealing with mastitis in our dairy herds. The work done at these research stations is carried on in what are sub-stations, and the hon. Member for Norfolk, South-West (Mr. Dye), mentioned the research that has been going on in sugar beet. If that research work


is developed and transferred to the rest of the country, then experiments are duplicated at the Somerset Farm Institute.
Let me come to the experimental farms, because that is what we are discussing tonight. The idea of these farms has demonstrated to local farmers the best methods of making their production better. I do not think they ought to be bothered with the research side in running these farms. The people who will benefit most as a result of the work done on these farms are the small men. I believe that is the intention. If we have research stations of a minor nature in every county throughout the country, in which vast sums of money are spent irrespective of what the cost and ultimate return is, I do not consider that we are carrying out the intention of those who originated the idea of having experimental farms throughout the country.
I would ask the Minister to be very careful and keep a close eye on the work going on in the experimental farms, keeping it separate and distinct from the work in the experimental stations. As a practical farmer I say that what we want to try to do should refer only to one or two of the proven varieties or types of cereal or grassland management as decided at the experimental farms, and not carry out experiments as they are carried out at the research station. Small farmers will then derive greater benefit from this system of experimental farms in almost every county.

7.58 p.m.

Mr. Watkins: In this discussion on experimental farms, apart from the slight reference by the hon. Member for Dorset, North (Mr. Crouch), who referred to the experimental farm in Aberystwith, very little has been said about farming operations in Wales itself. Is it not possible to get an experimental farm to deal with hill farming? It is all right to have an experimental farm where farming is easy, but the true experiment is to get a hill farm where hill farming is very difficult. Most of the farmers in Wales are small farmers, and it would be a good thing, in order to increase food production in our country, to get as many of our farm people to start with the hill farms themslves.
A great deal has been done by this Government under the Hill Farming Act,

but I have yet to know whether all the 23 provisions in the First Schedule have been put into operation in all the schemes that I have seen in my own two counties and in other parts of Wales. I should like to see an experimental farm on some of the hillsides of Wales to try out a number of things which will be of benefit to the country generally. I am glad to find that there are three demonstration hill farms to be provided at Glanyllyn Estate under the auspices of the Festival of Britain Committee. That is very good, but I want to see actual experiments in practical farming on the hillsides.
What I find to criticise in the Hill Farming Act is that a comprehensive scheme is always required by the Ministry before approval is given. I should like to see experiments of what can be done with regard to electrification, particularly from the cascades which come down the hillside, or in respect of other things which are very essential to hill farming. This would be a great service to the country generally. In Wales, we have been affected a great deal by the demands of the Forestry Commission, and more often than not they take farms which belong to the small farmers.
It would be a good thing if the Ministry were to make some provision at an experimental farm, although it would take years to do so, in connection with shelter belts on the hillside. That would be something of a lesson to the Ministry themselves as well as experience to the farmers. If they were able to get farmers to have shelter belts in their own farms, such a provision would have a great effect, say, upon an area like Towy Valley near Llandovery.
An experimental farm well up on the hills would provide lessons in farm work for the Ministry and others. I also suggest that real typical hill farming can be demonstrated by means of experiment, though whether or not it can be economically handled on a given acreage of land is another thing. There have been reports that most hill farms are uneconomic, but it all depends on the acreage, and therefore a great deal can result from such experiments. Not only will such experiments give hill farming a new impetus, but I hope it will help marginal land. An experimental farm on marginal land would aid not only Wales but other parts of the country.
I could not resist the temptation to take part in this Debate when people on both sides of the House were talking about experimental farms in various places. I thought that I would raise the question of getting an experimental farm where it is difficult to farm, which is the reason why I have contributed to this Debate.

8.3 p.m.

Mr. Lambert: I hope the hon. Member for Brecon and Radnor (Mr. Watkins) will forgive me if I do not follow him and make suggestions about what experiments should be carried out on experimental farms. I would rather confine myself to discussing how experimental farms can do their work as efficiently as possible. It is quite remarkable how science has enabled the English farmer to produce more food from the land. Looking the other day at some of the figures, I was amazed at the increase in the production of wheat and oats per acre during the past 50 years.
I feel, however, that one must not lose sight of the financial aspect. I have been reared in the old Liberal tradition, and I think it is essential that this country should get the very best value for each penny of public money that is spent. I personally think that the experimental farms would be more economically run—I am not going to say more efficiently run—if they were put under the control of the various agricultural colleges in the country. My hon. Friend the Member for Dorset, North (Mr. Crouch) mentioned the various experiments being carried out by the agricultural colleges. I am proud of the fact that my predecessor, who was my father, should have taken the opportunity of founding the Seale Hayle Agricultural College. It might interest the House to know that the lawyer who was very much concerned with him in the negotiations for founding the college, was the father of the present Prime Minister.
This college as in the past is now carrying out very many experiments of different sorts, and possibly the most successful so far has been the growing of broccoli. Mr. Horne, who was a student at the college, carried out certain experiments, as a result of which it is no exaggeration to say that it was possible for the Cornish

broccoli industry to be brought into being. At the moment the college is carrying out certain experiments, which I believe are of vital importance, namely the production of more and better grass per acre, and, having produced it, how to conserve it.
All the time the greatest attention is paid to the accounts. If any farmer wishes to go to the college and look over the farm he is welcome, and he can also see the accounts, because we who are connected with the college feel that having been convinced by the principal of the college that the farmer is not likely to be impressed by results if he can be shown not only the various methods that are followed but also that they are profitable. I ask the Parliamentary Secretary to consider whether or not it would be possible to give this added responsibility of running experimental farms to the agricultural colleges, who by their work in the past have shown that they are well able to undertake this added responsibility.

8.8 p.m.

Mr. Kenyon: I want to emphasise some of the points which have been made by my hon. Friend the Member for Brecon and Radnor (Mr. Watkins). It has always struck me as very significant in the past that the experimental farms are situated in areas where even the worst farmers could always make a success of farming, and they are left out entirely from those difficult areas where it is difficult for even the best farmer to make a success. When we consider that there are 17 million acres of marginal land in this country not contributing what they ought to contribute to the food supplies of the nation, it is time for some experimental work to be carried out by the Government on the development of this type of land and of the production of stock from such land. Therefore, I urge that experimental farms should be established and set up on the marginal and hill lands, in order to show how to develop these to a far greater extent.
The Ministry and the Government are pressing us very hard to develop the beef industry of the country. The beef industry in the hill land depends upon a good store of winter fodder; indeed, hill stock depends on winter fodder. We can produce the sheep and the beef calves in the spring, and we can run them through the


summer without difficulty, but we are totally unable to carry that stock through the winter because we have not got the fodder to do it. How shall we obtain this fodder? The main stand-by, of course, is hay, and, although it may seem a strange thing to say, we want more experiments in the making of hay. [Interruption.] As my hon. Friend says, how are we to get the sunshine? If the Government are to experiment in the production of sunshine, it would be a good thing.
The difficulty is that the grass-drying plants are of little use in the hills, because there is not a sufficient area in any one place of the meadows which grow the hay. Experiments have been carried out in the past in barn drying hay in bad weather. The hay is dried by blowing air through it by means of fans, and I do not think this has been developed as it ought to have been. In the West country this summer, there were thousands of acres of grass uncut, because it was impossible to obtain that grass and make it into hay. We have had rain day after day, and in my particular area, out of the 60 days from 5th June, we have had only five days which were completely dry. It was, therefore, impossible for us to dry the hay.
Many of us made as much silage as we could, but it is not every farmer who wants to make silage, and it is not every farm labourer who wants to cut it. If the Ministry would experiment in taking the smell out of silage, they would do a very good job, because I am confident that far more silage would be made if the smell could be abolished. Everyone knows that it is one of the worst evils with which we have to deal on a farm. One cannot go into a silage pit and then go into any form of society for 24 hours; it is an utter impossibility. Experiments in the drying of hay by different methods ought to be undertaken. If we can get the hay dried, if we can build up our stocks in the summer, then there will be a natural increase on the hills of both sheep and cattle, without the subsidies which the Minister is now giving.
I hope the Ministry will set up on this type of land these experimental farms that will concentrate upon the things that are now impossible for the farmer to work out for himself, and that the Ministry

will give us a lead in facing these difficulties which might result in being able to overcome the labour of so many farmers which drives them down to the lower land.

8.14 p.m.

Mr. Grimond: The hon. Member for Chorley (Mr. Kenyon) has drawn attention to the need for new methods in the treatment of hay, and I think that it is a very real need in a great many parts of Britain. I should like to emphasise what he himself said about the need for more silage, smell or no smell. I should also like to say, to him and to the Minister, that we have a certain amount to learn from Norway in these matters. There, on the hill land, there are various methods of drying hay which might, with advantage, be introduced into this country, on types of farms which meet with difficulties of climate.
What I really rose to do is to support the hon. Member for Brecon and Radnor (Mr. Watkins) in the plea he made concerning the great need for experimental farms on hill or marginal land, and I would support almost everything he said on this subject. I should like to add that one matter, which I think is of great importance, is that further experiments should be carried out on the economic size of farm units in different parts of the country. We can have a farm of the marginal type, which is extensive, that is to say, on the ranch model. On the other hand, there are certain parts of the country where we have smaller holdings or crofts, with or without common grazing, and I think that there is a lot to be done by the Government in compiling information and statistics on how far it is possible today to make a decent living on holdings in marginal or hill country and as to what size these holdings should be.
The Hill Farming Acts have given enormous help to this country, but there is a great deal still to be done in the hill and marginal land in giving the right sort of help to the smaller land holder. The Hill Farming Acts have principally benefited the large estate which is in the hands of one proprietor. I do not know how far the Minister is in touch with his colleague in Scotland, but may I ask him to draw that point to his attention. There is, of course, an enormous amount of land which would be greatly improved by


draining and I feel here that the Government, through their experimental farms can help. For instance, I suggest that it would be a great help if they could demonstrate methods of drainage and the enormous difference there is if a farm is well drained. If they could also experiment with machinery which the smaller farmer can use and which can be used to a great extent by unskilled or semi-skilled labour, that would be a great help in poorer and hill soils. I agree that the smallholder will have difficulty in paying for such machinery. He will need assistance. The Government should examine how far the returns will justify such assistance. I believe that they will justify it in time.
Next, there is the question of liming the hill land, and that is an enormous problem, in view of the acreage of hill land to be dealt with. The Ministry might even consider liming from the air. Then, there is the question of shelter belts, which again is most important if we are to improve the stock in these areas. Lastly, there is the question of experimental farms of a small type on the poorer land, and I reiterate that these experiments should be carried out on typical land, or on sub-typical land, and not on the very best land for the growing of fruit and vegetables. I think there are many farmers and crofters in this country, and certainly in Scotland, who have a tremendous opening for fruit and vegetable growing in areas where nearly all that produce is imported at great expense into the district from other parts of the country. I should like to finish by thanking the hon. Member who initiated this debate for giving us the opportunity of reviewing the subject and ask the Minister to look into the many points which have been raised.

8.18 p.m.

Mr. Baldwin: I want to add my congratulations to my hon. Friend who initiated this debate, and also to congratulate him on having picked for it, or having been selected for it on a day on which a very useful debate could be developed. What we are debating this evening is of tremendous value and importance.
I want to support many of the speeches made tonight in regard to what has been described as an experimental farm, although I think hon. Members who so

described it meant a commercial farm, run on commercial lines, which could demonstrate to a farmer on such farms in those areas that it was possible to run it and make a living. Farmers generally are somewhat sceptical about experiments, and they like to see experiments applied. I think the hon. Member for Norfolk, South-West (Mr. Dye) was quite right when he said that he wanted to see experiments demonstrated commercially. I think that is what we want. I should like to see these farms on the hills, on the marginal land, and on the west side of England, where the weather is somewhat difficult, taking advantage of the experiments conducted by the research stations, and then having their accounts published so that the Minister can say, "This is what can be done. Now you farmers in that area must get on and do it."
I am sometimes in doubt about some of the things done on experimental farms. The hon. Member for Norfolk, South-West, spoke about weed killing. I am a bit old-fashioned; I have an idea that the way in which to kill weeds is by properly cultivating the land. I am certain that the experimenters are not sure what they are doing when they kill the weeds on the fields. I have done it myself. As an experiment, I made a perfectly clean kill, but I could not make up my mind whether in killing my enemies I had not killed my friends at the same time.
I should like these experimental farms to go on with weed killing year after year and to demonstrate to farmers whether, in fact, they have sterilised the land. We have seen it tried in fruit orchards and in hop fields. As soon as we have killed one pest we find that we have raised two or three in its place. Therefore, experiments should be carried on over a longish period before we apply their results too enthusiastically.
I suggest to the Minister that instead of having quite so many experimental farms carrying out little experiments, or even carrying out the results of experiments at research stations, we should have a few farms run by managers whose salaries would be dependent on the profits they made, and let them demonstrate to the agricultural world that the experiments conducted in the research stations can be applied commercially and that farmers can make a living at the job.
My hon. Friend the Member for Guildford (Mr. Nugent) is on the price negotiation committee. I am always a bit doubtful how those negotiations are arrived at. I sometimes think that the negotiators on both sides conduct their negotiations as the result of an economic battle between the economic experts on both sides. I quite appreciate that these economic experts are right in their figures for a certain volume of farms, but there is a great disturbance in the public mind whether the farmers are not doing too well in these price negotiations.
In the last six months we had an illustration from the other side in the famous "feather-bedding" speech. The hon. Member who made that speech was only voicing what a great many people think, and I believe that the way to prove to the taxpayers of this country that the farmers are not being feather-bedded to the extent they think, would be to run some of these farms on a commercial basis and to publish their accounts. I am prepared to accept the prices at which such farms can be run at a profit. I agree with the suggestion of the hon. Member for Brecon and Radnor (Mr. Watkins) that there should be experimental farms on the hills. Let them go on the hills and pay an economic rent; let them run those farms commercially, and let us see the results. I think it would be a surprise and a shock to the people of this country to see the financial results of such an experiment.
I hope that as a result of this Debate the Ministry will consider the turning of some of their many experimental farms into commercially run farms. Let us see the result in £ s. d. and then, I think, the public may not be so dissatisfied with these guaranteed prices which are negotiated. The public think that the farmers are doing too well. One hon. Member opposite said to me that the Ministry of Agriculture was only a stooge of the National Farmers' Union. Let us publish the accounts and clear the Ministry of that allegation. I believe that the public would then agree that the Ministry had made a pretty hard bargain with the farmers.

Mr. Gooch: I should not have intervened in this Debate but for two points touched upon by the hon. Member for Leominster (Mr. Baldwin).

Had this been a Debate on whether farming was profitable under a Labour Government or not, a pretty good case could have been made out from this side of the House in favour of the point that farming today is thriving under a Labour Government.
However, the point I really wish to refer to is the development of spraying for the killing of undesirable weeds. The hon. Member who raised this point laid great stress on the fact that this system must be further developed. I hope that in any further development of spraying for the purpose of killing undesirable weeds the human element will be kept in the forefront. We have had some very unfortunate cases in this country, and to my own knowledge at least five farm workers have died as a result of handling poisonous spraying material. In one case one of the farm workers did not even get outside the field after using the spray before he collapsed and died.
That is a state of affairs which ought not to continue. No property in this country is worth the life of a single farm worker. I hope that when it comes to destroying weeds on experimental farms, the experimenters will keep in mind the human element and will remember that though it is extremely desirable to make farming efficient and profitable, it is also absolutely essential to see that the dangerous elements sometimes found in this system of spraying are completely removed.

8.27 p.m.

The Joint Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Agriculture (Mr. George Brown): We have had tonight a very interesting and, I think, useful discussion which could with profit have gone on a good deal longer regarding experimental farms and the value of Government policy. As my hon. Friend the Member for Norfolk, North (Mr. Gooch), pointed out, this is but one of the many instances of the additional work which is now being done with great enthusiasm and with considerable Government support to help to overcome some of the problems of farming rather curious country, from a climatic and other points of view, and to help commercial farmers to make the best of their opportunities, and, indeed, even the best of their difficulties.
I should have thought that the answer to the hon. Member for Leominster (Mr. Baldwin) on the question of commercial farms and the publishing of accounts was that by the policy of this Government in this as well as in other fields, an enormous amount is being done to enable commercial farmers to make the best of their opportunities. If the hon. Member is so concerned that the public shall have the farm accounts placed before them, I suggest that is a job for him and his friends to do.
In so far as the hon. Gentleman wants a propaganda job done on behalf of the farmers, I am quite sure that the reaction of every farmer whom I know would be: "Leave that to us and don't you, as a Government, try to do that for us." We are not proposing to run these farms as commercial farms. It is no good the hon. Member for Leominster putting on a slight sneer. That is not the job we are asked to do, and it is not the job that any one of them would thank us for doing. What we are seeking to do is to establish farms of particular types, typical in make-up of a whole lot of that type, on particular soils, typical of a whole part of the country, under typical climatic conditions, and then to conduct particular experiments. I believe that is a job which probably no one else would do, and it is for the Government to step in and do that job. It would not be possible for the Government to step in and try to do propaganda work for the farmers or their organisations.
A good deal of discussion tonight has been, I think, a little in the "hockey," as it were, because we have not got quite clear what an experimental farm is and what we want it to do. I hope that I may have the opportunity of putting that right as I go along. The hon. Gentleman who opened the Debate complained at one stage in his speech that he thought that I had misunderstood the motive behind it. So long as every public speech which he makes on this subject includes a piece of gratuitous rudeness, either at the expense of the experimental farm or at the expense of myself, he must run the risk of being misunderstood. The only improvement in his speech tonight was that on this occasion he insulted me and not the experimental farm. That is an improvement, and I hope that he will keep off the experimental farm in the future.

Mr. Peter Smithers: I never attacked the experimental farm as the hon. Gentleman has suggested. On behalf of constituents who have wanted information, I have asked for details about it, and I have protested when I have not been given those details. It is an exaggeration for the hon. Gentleman to say that I insulted him. He really must not heave and puff in this manner.

Mr. Brown: The hon. Gentleman must not take himself so seriously. He cannot see himself as we see him from these benches—[Interruption.] The hon. Member talked about my being shabby, but if he thinks that I have misrepresented what he said in the past, he has only to read his own Questions and supplementaries, which I have had the pleasure of answering many times. He has only to ask the agricultural interests around his own constituency. When I was down there, they had quite a lot to say to me about the hon. Gentleman on this subject.
So far as his questions are concerned, like those of other hon. Members, they are very much to be welcomed. One wants to get the position clear and to have a full understanding. The fact is that Britain, I think, has always been very good at making discoveries and doing fundamental scientific research. One of the things, perhaps, which we have not done so well is in discovering the application of the results of this fundamental research. That is what we are trying to do here, and I hope that this will be the answer to an awful lot of questions which have been asked. What we are trying to do is not fundamental research. We have a number of other agencies already doing that. Neither is it demonstration work, which we have already done far and wide in the field work of the National Agricultural Advisory Service. We think that can best be done by the district officers, and so on.
Experiment in the practical application of the fundamental research, the results of which form the basis of the demonstration work of the N.A.A.S. field officers and others is fundamentally the job that it is intended to do. Farmers will always be welcome at the experimental farms. We hope that they will come in groups and have a look at what is going on. Its fundamental purpose is not to be a demonstration farm, but a farm where the practical lessons of fundamental research


can be learnt and disseminated, either in written material, or, much more usefully, as we are having hosts of written material made available to us today in this industry, through the agency of the N.A.A.S.

Mr. Vane: Will the Joint Parliamentary Secretary say whether he believes that in this particular field the county farm institutes have so far failed?

Mr. Brown: There is a very great difference between the demonstration work which has been done at county farm institutes and the sort of work we want to do, and it is that distinction which I am trying to draw. Much of the demonstration work on county farms will have the advantage of the research at these stations. They will have a chance to see the work carried out on a rather broader basis than they can do it. It will be a sort of halfway house.
I will now say a word on the coverage. We are hoping—indeed, we intend—to have a whole series of these farms, some 17 or 18, covering, as far as we can, the different climatic and soil conditions that we get in this country. Obviously, they will not all be set up until some few years to come. We hear a lot these days about not doing too much at one time, and about not engaging upon too much capital expenditure. Therefore, there is only a limited amount of money that we can spend. We must have an order of priority.
The development of this service is under the control of the Ministry, who are advised by advisory bodies such as the Agricultural Improvement Council, the Agricultural Research Council and the N.A.A.S. It is they who laid down the priorities, such as which soils are to come first. We are proceeding in that way, and it may be of some comfort to my hon. Friend the Member for Chorley (Mr. Kenyon), and a good deal of comfort to my hon. Friend the Member for Brecon and Radnor (Mr. Watkins), to know that an experimental farm in East Lancashire has a very high priority—we are hoping to have such a farm among the first group—also an upland farm near Aberystwyth, as well as a hill farm in Caernarvonshire, forming part of our programme for Wales to experiment on the particular problems of that part of the country.
At the moment, we have about seven of these stations already established. One, of which the hon. Member for Winchester

(Mr. Peter Smithers) has personal knowledge, is a chalk soil farm. It is set up, not to do a particular service for the county of Hampshire, but to be a farm on which we can experiment in the way that we want on chalk soil. There is another one near Cambridge on clay soil with a light rainfall. Another is in Nottinghamshire on sandy soil. There is one in Lincolnshire, and one at King's Lynn in Norfolk, both being on silt and brick earth. Although they are separate, they will be treated as one unit. There is also one in Hereford, which is intended to give us a medium to heavy loam soil, with a somewhat lower rainfall, on which to operate. There is also one at Malton in Yorkshire, on the High Wolds, giving us a chance to experiment in that peculiar and rather difficult part of the country.
The question of horticulture was also raised. It is intended to have a number of horticultural stations in this set-up. I can give details of three that are already on the road. One is at Luddington, near Stratford-on-Avon, which is a fairly large unit, another at Stockbridge House, near Selby, which is not such a large unit, and one at Preston, which is a very small unit. Naturally, the work to be done will vary. What we are hoping to do is to establish at some of these farms large dairy herds, so that we can conduct experiments into breeding and nutritional problems. We are all agreed that that is a high priority in regard to our dairy herds.
At a few farms there will be pig herds with experimental work on the effects of crossbred vigour in pigs and on a number of feeding experiments, which will concern more especially the utilisation of home-grown feedingstuffs. We will have experiments in regard to beef cattle, with our chief object a critical study into a number of breeds and their crosses. We shall also have large-scale poultry units and investigation into the urgent problem of feedingstuffs. There will be other experiments, such as experiments on the crop husbandry side. Such questions as straw disposal, which is causing a considerable problem under present harvesting conditions, will he investigated, the effect of leys on soil fertility, the depths of ploughing, and all those sort of things.
The kind of work we shall do will, we hope, throw up the various problems met


by the ordinary commercial farmer on the type of soil on which he meets them and with the sort of crops and animals with which he meets them, and, while we do not propose or intend to deal with them under exactly the conditions that he does, we shall have some information to give him which will help him considerably in overcoming his problems.
Hon. Members have advanced all sorts of new ideas about experiments which could be undertaken. I suppose everyone who spoke could suggest ideas for experiments which should be urgently undertaken. There is obviously a limit to the amount of critical experimental work that can be undertaken and someone has to say what shall be done. Therefore, we have the central advisory machinery to advise on the order of priorities and the urgency of types of experiment, and the Agricultural Improvement Council, the Agricultural Research Council and the N.A.A.S. are the bodies who will give us the advice. The House will agree that, on the whole, they are the bodies who ought to know best what experiments we need most. Therefore, I cannot undertake to weigh up the values of the various suggestions put forward in the House tonight and can only say that they have been and will be borne in mind.
I should like to say a word about the local position. The management of the experimental farms will in every case be in the hands of a director, an officer of the N.A.A.S. Hon. Gentlemen who have visited the farm near Winchester will agree that one can hardly hope for a better person to be in charge than the director whom we have there. The director will be responsible for the day-to-day management, and he will have a small number of N.A.A.S. technical officers to assist him in carrying out the experimental work. There is also a local farm advisory committee to advise and assist the director in the management of the centre and to consider the need for experimental work on problems of purely local concern so that they are not altogether shut out, although we do not want this to be its prime function.
The chairman is a leading farmer or grower, and each committee contains other practical farmers, together with the representatives of the N.A.A.S. and members of the staff of Agricultural Research

Centres. These interests have all been linked up so that everyone has a say in the matter and there is no ridiculous competition. The Provincial Land Commissioner is also being added in order to tie up with the Agricultural Land Service.

Mr. Baldwin: So that the hon. Gentleman will not think that I am always critical, I hope he will add to what he said just now the director of the Hereford experimental station, a particularly capable man who has run the agricultural executive committee very well.

Mr. Brown: I have no doubt that the director will be very glad to know that he has the confidence of the hon. Gentleman.

Mr. Peter Smithers: Will the hon. Gentleman make clear who is the ultimate authority in regard to these farms? Is the Minister the supreme controlling authority when all is said and done?

Mr. Brown: Yes, Sir, they are Ministry farms, but there is no farming from Whitehall. The day-to-day management and actual carrying out of decisions is a local responsibility. The central decision on the kind of major experiment to be carried out will be dealt with by the advisory body to which I referred. The Ministry itself is responsible for administrative supervision and for financial control.
Many hon. Members have raised the question of the publication of accounts. The hon. Member for Winchester asked how the costs were distributed. I have listened to everything that has been said on this subject and I still do not believe that the publication of accounts has anything whatever to do with the work that the experimental farms are doing or the value of the work when they have done it. We are not pretending to run them under commercial considerations. If we begin to publish accounts, they will be meaningless unless they are to be taken for comparison with commercial farms, and once that is done all sorts of misleading deductions will be drawn.
For that reason, we are sticking to our decision not to publish the accounts, and I invite hon. Gentlemen to think this over and see whether they do not agree that that is the right course and that we ought to drop the present demand, which only gives people the impression


that there is some bad reason for not publishing the accounts. That is not at all true; we are only carrying out here what other professional men will know is the normal practice in experimental work of this kind.

Mr. Lambert: Surely the hon. Member will agree that the very fact that he will not publish the accounts makes people suspicious?

Mr. Brown: I am sorry, but one cannot answer for the ability of all sorts of people who get suspicious for all sorts of reasons.

Mr. Bowen: Why not publish the accounts?

Mr. Brown: I have said why not. One cannot say it over and over again. The reason is that the publishing of the accounts has nothing to do with the job which the experimental stations are setting out to do. They are setting out to carry out experiments into major problems under peculiar circumstances and to disseminate to the industry generally the technical considerations which emerge. What the day-to-day costs are has nothing to do with the lesson which is to be drawn from the experiment.
The commercial lesson would be learnt at the next stage, the demonstration stage, but these are not intended to be commercial demonstrations. Obviously, at the commercial demonstration that sort of comparison could be made. When we are publishing the details of experiments, in so far as the economic side is a proper part of the lesson to be learnt, that will certainly be part of the report which is published. That certainly is done on the economic side, to show the cost of producing this or that thing under this or that condition. The actual cost of running the station, I strongly submit—and this is accepted by everybody in the industry—is no index of the work done for the industry.

Mr. Lambert: I would call the attention of the Minister to the principle, of which I know he has a very high opinion, that strict accounts should be kept at every stage, from the experimental to the commercial, so that they can be seen by anybody.

Mr. Brown: I quite agree. That is the next stage. That is exactly what I am

saying. The work being done under these conditions is different from the work that is being done on the experimental farm.

Mr. Bowen: Would the Minister not agree that at all stages these operations are financed by public money? What on earth is the objection to telling the people who provide the money how much the experiments are costing?

Mr. Brown: The answer is that if the hon. Gentleman had been here throughout the Debate he would know.

Mr. Bowen: I have been here throughout the Debate.

Mr. Brown: We do tell the public what these experiments are costing. In the aggregate we publish our estimates in the body of the Civil Estimates, Class VI. We publish our actual expenditure, which is considered by the Select Committee on Accounts and the Select Committee on Estimates. We are doing all that, so there is no reason to import that kind of misrepresentation into the Debate. The only issue is whether we would gain anything locally by publishing the day-to-day costs and I think we would not. We might very well lose a considerable amount.
Perhaps I might now go on to the other points. We have been talking about contractors who, working under exactly the same conditions as would be done commercially every day, were engaged in spraying weed killer. The wind blew too hard, and some of the spray went too far and landed on somebody else's crops where it was not intended it should go. All I said to the hon. Gentleman who raised the matter was that there is no need for us to give instructions to the contractor who carried out his job in an everyday commercial way. That is all we have to secure. If he had done anything negligent, the folk whose crops were touched would have had their ordinary remedy at law, but with one exception they all agree that they have been most handsomely treated by the contractor. There is nothing for us to give instructions about. I have no doubt that a whole lot of commercial firms do this kind of spraying already day after day.

Mr. Peter Smithers: That is not the point. I asked in a Parliamentary Question whether the Minister would give instructions that these experiments are


to be carried out well away from private gardens. It is not the particular case that I am thinking about so much as the principle, and I want an answer. The Minister has said, "I have no power to give instructions to those who carry out the spraying," but the Parliamentary Secretary has said that ultimate power resides in the Minister. Surely then the answer of the Minister was wrong.

Mr. Brown: No. How can we give instructions that the spraying is not to be carried out near private gardens if the field of crops that we want to spray happens to be near the private garden? The only course is to say that we shall not do the spraying, but obviously then we shall not carry out the experiment. All that we can secure is that the contractor does his job in the commercial way. If anything happens, the affected person either comes to an arrangement, as happened in this case and has happened in other cases, or has a remedy in law, which seems to me the proper thing to do.

Mr. Dye: May I mention a point that will become of growing importance? If spraying takes place, whether from an aircraft or by other means, is it not the duty of those undertaking the work to have someone present to see that no damage is done to neighbouring farms or gardens? It is all very well to say that those whose crops have been injured have remedy by going to court, but surely they ought not to be put to those lengths?

Mr. Brown: One hopes happen.

Mr. Dye: But it does happen.

Mr. Brown: I know, but the spraying of weed killer by aeroplane is one of the ways in which the job is now done, and short of having another aeroplane following behind—but what that could do I am not quite clear—it is very difficult to make sure that the weed killer will not be blown too far. We expect the contractors to do the job properly and sensibly and to be strictly dealt with if they do not do so. Unless the House is setting itself up as the authority on this particular technical question, we cannot go any further without banning the thing altogether, which everybody would agree would be a truly backward step.

Mr. Baldwin: Why do the Ministry not take responsibility?

Mr. Brown: It is no good the hon. Member shouting about taking responsibility. We have employed the contractor, as the hon. Member might have done some time in his farming life. The contractor is employed on the understanding that he is ordinarily professionally competent. No evidence has been produced that any of the contractors we have ever employed are otherwise. An accident did arise, but it was dealt with in the way accidents will always be dealt with, and there is no reflection either upon us or upon our contractors.

Mr. Baldwin: But the Ministry should take responsibility.

Mr. Brown: We did take responsibility and the folk concerned were handsomely treated, as they themselves told me and as the hon. Member would not challenge.

Mr. Smithers: I quite agree, but the hon. Gentleman said that he had no powers.

Mr. Brown: What is the point of saying that we must take responsibility? We did, handsomely, and the contractors did so in the ordinary way.
I turn now to silviculture, which has been raised many times. In so far as this arises from the experience at the experimental farm it Marty Worthy, I have expressed my view, but I do not think it is always acceptable to certain hon. Members. I believe that the people there did nothing that was not absolutely justified on agricultural grounds. We removed what were pheasant coverts. I have no doubt that they were the source of a good deal of useful shooting for folk locally, and no doubt their removal was a little irritating. But I am sure that it was right. It helped the much better layout of fields and removed cove for pests, and I do not believe that we did anything wrong.
On the question of the general principle, we will certainly take account in the running of the experimental farms of the need to have shelter belts, whether on upland farms, on the hillside, or on local farms, and so on. We will take great care regarding the kind of trees which are planted and felled. We will work in the closest contact with the Forestry Commission, who are the body responsible for research into silviculture


problems and who are able to give our people advice on everyday problems. It is not quite right to suggest that our directors will not be able to deal with the ordinary problems of estate management regarding trees on any farm, but I assure the House that we take the greatest care to fit that problem into our operations and to see that it plays its proper part and that we get the best advice we can.

Mr. Smithers: I am anxious that the hon. Gentleman should do something to preserve individual fine specimen trees—for example, the ancient yews, to which I referred. They should not be brushed aside and cut down merely because they are a bit of a nuisance.

Mr. Brown: I am being more kind to the hon. Member than he understands. The reason why I did not take that point was that local folk know as well as I do that there is nothing in it. We are not brushing away valuable trees which are 400 or 500 years old; that has not been done and will not be done. I think I have said enough to show that on the general question of fitting silviculture into the running of our farms, we will take very good care of that point.
The hon. Member for Guildford (Mr. Nugent) asked me to make sure that adequate reports of what we have carried on, without the profit and loss account, should be made available. I hope I have given him that assurance. My hon. Friend the Member for Norfolk, South-West (Mr. Dye) raised the question of demonstrations of weed killing and work against pests. In so far as that is appropriate in the experiments we are carrying out, that will be taken in under the conditions in which we are working. As my hon. Friend knows, the N.A.A.S. is continuously carrying out advisory and experimental work into those very problems.
The hon. Member for Dorset, North (Mr. Crouch) said that we do not want county research stations. That is exactly what I hope these establishments will never come to be. Equally, they are not intended to be demonstration farms. It will be the N.A.A.S. which will conduct the experiments. I think I have dealt with the point raised by the hon. Member for Brecon and Radnor (Mr. Watkins) about hill farms, and as regards forestry, I repeat that the Forestry Commission are the body charged with research work into

that sort of problem. We shall certainly work in close contact with them, of course, in our hill farm which we hope to establish in Wales. The suggestion that we should hand this work over to the colleges was made by the hon. Member for Torrington (Mr. Lambert), but I think that is wrong. The farms are properly placed under the A.I.C. and the A.R.C., and that is where we would prefer to keep them.
In replying to questions about hay and silage, I cannot undertake the running of experiments in which the making of sunshine is the object, and I have my doubts whether the making of hay is ever again to be a very easy or profitable undertaking in many parts of the country. I agree with the hon. Member who said that, smell or no smell, we must follow up other forms of grass conservation, of which silage is the most practicable and worthwhile.
I think I have covered nearly all the detailed points raised. I believe we are carrying out a piece of work of tremendous value to our industry. As a result we shall build up a great deal of evidence, information and practical considerations that can be translated into everyday practice and will be of enormous value. I earnestly invite hon. Members on all sides of the House to keep in touch with the work of these farms and help us by neither applying criticisms out of place nor encouraging expectations which would be wholly wrong having regard to the work they are doing. Let us get over to the industry that this is part of a long chain of technical assistance, guidance and help which is now available, and that it is of great importance to commercial farms to carry out the results of this technical work in their every-day husbandry practice.

LOCAL GOVERNMENT STAFFS (TRADE UNION MEMBERSHIP)

9.5 p.m.

Dr. Hill: I invite the House to pass to another and no less important subject which, although of a local character, has repercussions throughout the country. I refer to the action of Durham County Council at its meeting on 1st November in passing a resolution requiring every member of its staff, at all levels, to produce evidence


of belonging to a trade union under pain of threat of dismissal. I ought to add, in order that the position may be perfectly clear, that the requirement is not to belong to a particular trade union, so there is no internal trade union problem involved. I should also add that in the case at least of the doctors and, I imagine, in the case of other groups, the requirement is being interpreted as one to belong to their professional association if they prefer that to belonging to a trade union.
The issue I desire to raise is the general issue of a local authority, under threat of dismissal, requiring its employees to belong to a trade union, or professional association or other such body. To complete the statement of the facts I will read from a letter of a departmental chief to the staff of his department which sums up the situation:
At a meeting of the County Council on November 1st, 1950."—
the letter incidentally is dated 10th November—
it was decided that all members of the staff should be members of an appropriate Trade Union. I should be obliged therefore if you will supply me with evidence of your membership (e.g., membership card, subscription receipt of card) of an appropriate Trade Union on or before November 22nd, 1950. If you are not a member of a Trade Union, will you please acknowledge receipt of this letter. If evidence of membership of a Trade Union is not produced by this date appropriate notices will be given to all those persons in the employment of the County Council who are not members of a Trade Union to terminate their employment and at the same time the persons concerned will be offered re-employment on their existing terms with an overriding condition that they become members of an appropriate Trade Union before being re-engaged.
That is the essence of the problem, and I repeat that I am raising no question of the local authority having chosen one union or one body, for I readily acknowledge that the officers in at least one profession—and I have no doubt that it applies to others—are being given the alternative of a professional association.
It seems to me this is wrong in three or four respects. Firstly, I believe it to be wrong from the angle of the trade union or the professional association. To secure members under duress—for duress it is to secure members in this way—is to damage the organisation which secures them. The body from which a member, dissatisfied with its officers, its policy or

its work, cannot voluntarily resign without losing his job, is an unhealthy one and unlikely faithfully to represent the views of its members.
Secondly, I believe that the rôle of the local authority is to undertake its work with the greatest possible efficiency, to employ the best qualified persons to do its work, whether they belong to this or that organisation, or not. Thirdly, I believe it to be utterly wrong for a man's job to be at the mercy, not only of the employing authority, but also of the trade union to which he belongs. For the loss of membership for some offence within the trade union organisation or machinery to mean the loss of a man's job, is utterly wrong. Most important of all—

Dr. Morgan: He has the alternative of joining another organisation.

Dr. Hill: I am coming to my fourth and most important argument—

Mrs. Jean Mann: Before the hon. Member comes to it, would he say whether that argument applies to the British Medical Association and the doctors?

Dr. Hill: Yes, I shall be glad to make the point in relation to the British Medical Association of which until quite recently I was the secretary. To answer the question that has been put—

Mr. Manuel: If you can—

Dr. Hill: Do not doubt my capacity until I have had the opportunity to answer. The British Medical Association is a voluntary body. The Durham County Council orders the doctors to join a trade union or the British Medical Association, as they choose, but the attitude of the British Medical Association is that no doctor should be required to join any body, not even the B.M.A. If any local authority were to offer an advertisement for the columns of the "British Medical Journal" requiring the successful applicant to be a member of the British Medical Association, then the "British Medical Journal," the organ of that Association, would reject that advertisement.

Mrs. Mann: Does the hon. Gentleman know of any doctors who have dared not


to join the B.M.A., in spite of what he says?

Dr. Hill: I am glad the hon. Lady has asked that question. In my days as secretary I knew of all too many people who dared not to join. Let me assure the hon. Lady that the membership of the British Medical Association is between 75 per cent. and 80 per cent. of the profession, that it is an entirely voluntary body, and that there is no compulsion on any man to join that body. No doubt I shall be interrupted further if the reply is regarded as inadequate.
May I come to what I believe to be the essential point of this business? It is a bad thing for any man to be required to join any organisation. In the industrial field in recent years we have seen some really shocking examples where men have lost their jobs because, for conscientious reasons, they felt themselves unable to belong or to continue to belong to an organisation. I think sometimes that we are losing our capacity for anger at such interference with the freedom of the individual.

Mr. Awbery: Is the hon. Member aware that thousands of men lost their jobs because they did join a union?

Dr. Hill: I glad of that intervention for I believe that the battle for the right of association was a magnificent and a necessary one. There is a corollary to it, the right of the individual not to belong to an organisation if he so wishes. Let there be no misunderstanding. As one who spent many years in the field of collective bargaining, I want men and women to belong to their respective and appropriate trade unions and professional associations. But let me proceed—

Mr. Manuel: Mr. Manuel rose—

Dr. Hill: Yes, come on.

Mr. Manuel: Do not throw out too many challenges, you might hit something! If the hon. Member's belief in combination for the worker is so strong, why is he a member of the party which consistently throughout its history has tried to stop that combination?

Hon. Members: Oh!

Dr. Hill: I am not going into rhetorical questions which are calculated to confuse the central issue to which I am coming. However evil it may be in the field of in-

dustry, it seems to me to be utterly wrong and intolerable that a local authority should adopt this attitude.
This is an issue of great importance. I am glad the issue has not been raised, certainly prominently, since 1946, the time of the Willesden incident. I want to acknowledge straight away that the Minister took action in that case which I hope he will take in this case. May I remind the House of the words used in a Ministry circular to all local authorities in December, 1946, following the Willesden affair? Hon. Members will remember that the members of the staff of a maternity hospital—midwives, nurses and others—were told to belong to a union or take, I think it was, a month's notice. The general opinion at the time was that the skill of the midwife at her job of midwifery was far more important than her membership of this or that organisation. The Minister said these words:
The Minister wishes to make it clear to all local authorities that he considers that their primary duty as health authorities is to maintain the efficient and smooth-running of their health services and to ensure the welfare of the patients for whom they are responsible. All other considerations, must in his view, be regarded as secondary and he trusts that local authorities will follow this principle in their administration. While the Minister is anxious that doctors, nurses and members of similar professions should join a trade union or appropriate professional association, he considers that this matter should not he determined by the unilateral action of local authorities.

Dr. Morgan: What is the date?

Dr. Hill: 6th December, 1946, as I gave earlier. The circular is signed by the Permanent Secretary to the Ministry of Health.
I think that action was entirely right, and that it should be pointed out to local authorities that this matter should not be determined by their unilateral action. My purpose in raising this tonight is to ask that the Minister should repeat that advice. I ask for this reason. Hon. Members will have noticed in the letter that I read out the date was 10th November. I have in my hand a letter to employees of the public health department and I assume that corresponding letters went out to other departments. But the letter was dated 10th November, and the subscription card or proof of membership had to be returned to the head of the department by 22nd November. They were given 12 days in which to comply.
As I understand it, many employees of that local authority are in some difficulty. Many of them are members of an appropriate trade union or professional association, but many of them resent intensely having to produce evidence of that membership as a condition of continuing to hold their job. I am glad to see that the local branch of the National Union of Teachers have advised teachers not to comply with this requirement. I hope that the Minister will find it possible to make an early intervention, because members of the staff of that county council are in obvious difficulty of one kind or another as to how to comply, even if the bulk of them are already members of the appropriate body. I hope that an early intervention can be made by the Minister in order to settle this problem.
I think I may be forgiven for saying that the vast majority of local authorities, whatever their political complexion, have far too much sense to do a thing of this sort. Proof of that is, I think, that it has not happened on any scale for some four years. But it does afford one an opportunity, and this House an opportunity, of demonstrating the right of the individual to belong, or not to belong, to an organisation as one of the elementary freedoms of the individual.

9.20 p.m.

Dr. Morgan: This is a very curious argument and a very curious discussion because I have so often heard the hon. Member for Luton (Dr. Hill) in the performance of his duty, urge professional men to join a representative organisation, and the one to which he was attached. I can speak freely about this because it is not a British Medical Association matter. It is because I happen to be on the Council of the British Medical Association that I have heard the views expressed by the hon. Member so firmly at different times.
What is this local authority asking for? They are asking their employees to belong to some representative organisation with which the authority can negotiate regarding remuneration or conditions of work of their employees. They are not asking the doctors to join the British Medical Association. They can join the Medical Practitioners Union which is registered as a trade union and affiliated

to the T.U.C., which the B.M.A. is not. They are asking their employees to join any association so long as it is representative, so that, instead of having to deal with single individuals, the authority can go to a representative organisation which has either some local standing or national character. Surely there is nothing wrong with that?

Dr. Hill: The hon. Member is repeating what I said; that in fact the requirement is to join an appropriate body. I do not raise the issue of which body is appropriate. All I say is that the requirement to belong to a body as a condition of employment is something which is fundamentally wrong.

Dr. Morgan: I do not agree, because if all the employers have to deal on certain occasions with individuals and make separate arrangements and contracts with those individuals when those contracts deal with wider issues, it would make matters very unworkable. Surely it is proper for an organisation, when considering any vital national or regional issue, to say, "We think you should, for our convenience and for your own, join one organisation, and we demand that as a condition of employment. That would prevent us going to every employee of ours and negotiating with them separately." That is a very reasonable thing in these days when trade unionism is so widely recognised. The point is the convenience of the negotiating body which is spending public money or money granted by Parliament, and it is right that there should be these organisations for negotiation.

Dr. Hill: In general, local authorities do not make the requirements a condition of employment today. The Whitley structure for negotiation exists. How does the hon. Member reconcile his statement that it is required for negotiation, when negotiating machinery for the most part exists in the Whitley structure?

Dr. Morgan: That is the poorest argument which could be put against the case I am advocating. The hon. Member says that there is government machinery available, which has been settled by legislation by which—

Mr. Harmar Nicholls: Not Government machinery.

Dr. Morgan: The hon. Gentleman should not interrupt me on a trivial point


when I am trying to deal seriously with this matter.

Mr. Nicholls: This is not a trivial point. Is the hon. Member arguing that administrative convenience has to be put over freedom of the individual? Does he not realise the claims of conscience in these people at all?

Dr. Morgan: I am not asking for individual freedom for one or two individuals; I am arguing that it should be spread over everybody. Hon. Members opposite talk about freedom of the individual as if freedom of the individual were everything. [HON. MEMBERS: "Hear, hear."] Very well, but freedom of the individual depends on the non-violation of the freedom of others. That is a cardinal principle with us.

Mr. Hopkin Morris: How does the hon. Gentleman account for the fact that one of the most powerful trade unions, the National Union of Teachers, are advising their members not to produce the evidence.

Dr. Morgan: How can I argue about that? How can I be responsible for the National Union of Teachers? The point I am making is that these negotiating bodies should be representative, so that when local authorities want to negotiate on some regional or national issue, there is a representative group with whom they can settle the matter without having to deal singly and separately with each individual. The Durham County Council are perfectly wise in their requirements. They are not asking any one to belong to a particular organisation. They are not telling the doctors that they must belong to the B.M.A. or the M.P.U. They say, "We want to know that you are a member of some representative organisation which can speak jointly for you and others in the same profession who are our employees."
The freedom of the individual is now being brought into the matter, but it has nothing to do with it. I have heard the hon. Member for Luton arguing as seriously as he possibly could that every doctor should belong to the premier medical association. The Durham County Council take the view that it would be much better if their employees belonged to a stable body and did not act as individuals. If individuals need not belong to a recognised body, what are the

Durham County Council to do? Are they going to negotiate with the trade unions and leave the isolated individuals outside, allowing them to get the advantages of negotiation with the trade unions? I say that that is not right, and I ask the House to reject the arguments of the hon. Member for Luton.

9.30 p.m.

Mr. Bowen: I rise to express my delight that the hon. Member for Luton (Dr. Hill) has thought fit to raise this matter this evening, because I regard it as one of supreme importance. I think I should say that, in fairness to the Government, the Minister of Labour has expressed views diametrically opposed to everything that has been said by the hon. Member for Warrington (Dr. Morgan). The Government made it quite clear in 1946 where they stood in this matter. I shall refer in a moment to the precise words of the Minister in regard to the action of the Durham County Council, which he said was to be strongly deprecated.
Might I refer to the way in which the matter is dealt with by the Minister of Labour? In December, 1946, a Question was put by Mr. Byers, who asked the Minister of Labour—
whether, in view of the injustice now being caused to individual nurses, teachers, members of certain religious bodies and others, by the enforcement of the closed shop, it is still the intention of His Majesty's Government to leave this matter to both sides of industry.
This was the answer which the Minister gave:
In so far as the cases to which the hon. Member refers result from unilateral action by individual employers, regarding trade union membership of their employees, such action, whatever form it takes, is to be strongly deprecated, and is likely to be detrimental to harmonious industrial relations."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 5th December, 1946; Vol. 431, c. 504.]
So far as the Durham County Council is concerned, this is a case of unilateral action by an individual employer regarding trade union membership, and I think it should be made quite clear to the Durham County Council that such action is to be strongly deprecated, if I may use the words of the Minister, and is likely to be detrimental to harmonious industrial relations.
Quite apart from harmonious industrial relations, in my submission, it runs quite contrary to our conception of the


right of the individual to seek employment without a condition attached to it, which is a breach of the elementary principle of freedom. It may well be, and I certainly think it is, desirable that as many people as possible in industry should belong to their appropriate trade union, but the fact remains that, out of some 20 million workers in this country, over 13 million of them have not chosen to become members of a trade union affiliated to the Trades Union Congress, so that, in fact, over half the working population of the country consists of people who are not members of trade unions affiliated to the T.U.C. That gives us some indication of the range of people who might very well be affected by the action of the Durham County Council.
It may be true that it is convenient for employers if their employees are members of trade unions, and that it is convenient for purposes of negotiation and for arranging terms between both sides of the industry. I certainly do not deny that for a moment, but this is not a question whether it is desirable that one should join a trade union, from a point of view of support of the trade union movement as a whole, nor is it a question whether this arrangement is more or less convenient to both sides of industry. The question involved here is whether it is right for an employer to make it a condition of employment for a particular person that he should belong to an appropriate trade union, and the Government, through the Minister, have made it quite clear that that is something which is to be deprecated.

Dr. Morgan: The hon. Member is quite wrong. I am not asking that any county council employer should ask that a man should belong to a particular trade union or organisation, but that he should belong to any one of the recognised organisations which can act in a representative capacity.

Mr. Bowen: In my view, the position is aggravated if they insist on the man being a member of a particular trade union, but it is none the less serious if they insist on him being a member of a union at all. Let us consider the complications that may arise concerning the Durham County Council. What if one is refused membership of a trade union,

presumably because the union, for any reason best known to themselves, refuses members? For example, they may say, "We are not going to have Communists or Conservatives in our union." The effect of that would be that a man would have to be sacked.

Mr. Messer: What about the Liberals?

Mr. Bowen: He is more likely to be a Liberal than of either of the other two parties if he is taking independent action. If he was a Communist, he would certainly conceal the fact and become a member of the party opposite.
Another difficulty arises. If after becoming a member of a trade union he commits some breach of the union's regulations, some purely internal domestic arrangement, and the union decide to withdraw their ticket from him, then, again, the Durham County Council have got to sack him. I take the view that to place a man in such a position, where both the employer and the union have a hold over him in that respect, is something which hon. Members opposite certainly ought to deprecate.
I have attempted to put forward my view on the basis that there was no insistence on a particular union. The phrase used in the letter quoted by the hon. Member was "the appropriate trade union." I can well see complications arising in that respect. Who is to determine which is the appropriate union? [HON. MEMBERS: "The man himself."] Assuming there is a break way union and the man chooses to join that union, what happens? It seems to me that, ultimately, if there is any conflict as to which is the appropriate union, then the employer is going to determine the matter.
Let us take, for example, the case of teachers. We might well get the most controversial position over the determination of what should be the appropriate trade union, and we might well get members of that profession having to join a union in order to retain their job. Quite apart from that, the council or any other employer can get round the legal difficulties by giving notice to their employees and then re-engaging them on condition that they become members of a trade union.
In the case of the Durham County Council, there are people who have been employed by that council for 20 or 30


years. Are those people now to be told that a new condition of employment has been introduced, and that unless they are prepared to conform with that condition they are to be sacked? I hope that, in accordance with the clear and categorical statement made by the Minister in this House, and in accordance with what was said in a circular sent to local authorities in 1946, the Minister of Health will in this instance make it quite clear to the Durham County Council that their action is to be strongly deprecated from the point of view of co-operation between each side of industry, from the point of view of the well-being of trade unionism, and, most important of all, from the point of view of the freedom of the individual.
In the same answer to a supplementary question in relation to the Question to which I have referred, the Minister of Labour, in his personal capacity—he made it quite clear that he was speaking personally—referred to the danger of religious persecution through this medium. What is the position of those members of the Durham County Council who happen to be Plymouth Brethren and who object to joining any trade union?

Mr. Slater: Let me remind the hon. Member, as a lifelong Durhamite, that we shall be very fortunate to find anybody belonging to the Plymouth Brethren in Durham.

Mr. Bowen: I do not wish to pit my knowledge of Durham against that of the hon. Member, but I should be very surprised indeed if there is not a number of members of this religious body in Durham.

Mr. Emrys Hughes: Has the hon. Gentleman had any request from a member of the Plymouth Brethren or any other person employed by the Durham County Council?

Mr. Bowen: It may well be that some persons on the Durham County Council will become Plymouth Brethren. I am amazed at the contempt which is being shown at this particular point of view. In case hon. Members opposite may think that I am expressing a view not in accordance with at least some members of their own party, let me read what the Minister himself said:
But as to religious intolerance, I think myself—and I am only speaking, though a Minister, at the moment for myself—I think

and I hope that trade unions will respect opinion of that sort where it is honestly and sincerely held. I know cases where such opinion has been respected, and I say further that I am, as Minister, using what little influence I have with the organisations concerned to avoid these regrettable incidents."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 5th December, 1946; Vol. 431, c. 505.]
I think that the Minister of Health might also use what influence he has with this county council to avoid regrettable incidents such as this.

9.41 p.m.

Mr. G. Lang: I am very glad that this matter has been raised tonight. I think that I can say at the beginning of a very short speech that there is a good deal of common ground between us on both sides of the House. I think that most reasonable people would regard it as a right thing and a wise thing for professional and other workers to belong to their respective trade unions, and that it is to their advantage and to the advantage of their fellows in every way that they should do so. The right to do that was bought at a very great price. Most of us know, in the course of our work as Members of Parliament, that a very large body of employers are themselves glad when their workpeople belong to unions, and encourage them to join unions.
If the hon. Member for Luton (Dr. Hill) had been objecting tonight to a suggestion from the Durham County Council that it would be a good thing for their employees to join a union, then I should have counted him entirely wrong. The question, however, is not the wisdom of belonging to a trade union but the compulsion which is being used. I should be false to the thing in which I believe if I did not say tonight that I find myself in agreement with the hon. Member for Luton. I did not quite expect to find myself in agreement with him, and certainly not so soon in this Parliament, but upon this matter I feel that he has raised an important point to which I must give my vote.
It may be said of me by some of my hon. Friends that, of course, I am not a trade unionist, and, therefore, I can talk quite freely. I do talk freely, and I am thankful for the privilege, which I propose to continue to exercise; and all that I can do to keep other people free I shall do. I am bound to ask myself what might happen if the circumstances were


slightly reversed. If it is going to become a feature of our public administrative life that a local governing body can order people to join a trade union, I can conceive of occasions when certain bodies are elected when there might be an instruction that none of their empoyees were to belong to any trade union. If that were the case, there would be a great deal said, I am sure, by my hon. Friends, and I should say the same thing then as I say now, that it is not the duty of a local body to impose its will in that way upon its employees.
I was unable to take the view, because I never felt myself big enough and of single purpose enough, of a conscientious objector, but I always objected to the fact that certain education authorities refused to reinstate or to employ conscientious objectors. I regretted their right to impose that particular view on their employees. My view was that the test of a teacher should be his loyalty to his country and his ability to teach. I supported to the utmost of my ability, I am glad to say, and in some cases financially helped, those people who were victimised in that way. The very fact that I took that stand then means that I am unable now to accept a view which is very similar. I wish that men could belong to their respective unions.
I quite agree with what my hon. Friend the Member for Warrington (Dr. Morgan) said about people outside a union benefiting from the work of those inside a union. We cannot avoid that. Surely it is agreed that there is a large number of people who benefit by our political activities but do not give us their support as belonging to our party? Surely we do not propose to deprive them of the benefit of our legislation because they belong to the other side?

Dr. Morgan: That is an entirely different point. My hon. Friend is talking about social relationships between a political party and those who do not agree with it. We are talking about employers and employees—the arrangements of their work by negotiation—who, for convenience sake, should have proper arrangements to join an organisation.

Mr. Lang: I quite understood what my hon. Friend said, and I quite understand what I was saying. What I was trying to do was to extricate my hon. Friend from an awkward position and

make him once again a true Socialist. I am sorry if I have failed. All I desire to say now it that, in one way or another, there is a steady dwindling of freedom in our land. I do not like it; I think it is wrong. We must do all we can to preserve the freedom of the individual.

Mr. Harrison: In the earlier part of my hon. Friend's speech, he said that he was not a trade unionist and that because of that he was free. Does he suggest that I, being a trade unionist, am less free than he is?

Mr. Lang: I am not responsible for my hon. Friend, nor for what he says. I have quite enough to do myself. I was saying that, because I am not a trade unionist, it is easy for me to talk because I cannot be put on the mat for what I say in this Debate. If I were working in some occupation where there was a trade union, I should belong to it. But I should join it freely, and I should object to being told what I should do. I know that there are Members who disagree with me, and they will note my respect for their right to say what they think. Indeed, they can say what they like about me, providing Mr. Speaker allows it. However, I say that liberty is dwindling in this land, and I regret it. In view of what has happened in Willesden, because it seems to me common sense and reason, I hope that there will be no departure from it.

9.50 p.m.

Mr. Gage: The House will be grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Luton (Dr. Hill) for having raised this difficult and very important question. I have always taken the view, like most of my hon. Friends, that there are two sides to this matter. I belong to a profession which has one of the strongest trade unions, and I am very proud and glad of that fact. If I were in an occupation where there was a trade union, I would most certainly belong to it, and I would use every endeavour to persuade my fellow workmen also to belong to it.
I was in almost complete agreement with what the hon. Member for Warrington (Dr. Morgan) said. One of the great benefits of the trade union movement, and of having everyone in it, is the matter of collective bargaining. I can well understand, because I move in my constituency among trade unionists—the majority of my con-


stituents are trade unionists—the annoyance of a man in a particular trade, who feels that his trade union has done a great deal for the workers in that trade, that people outside the union should benefit. But we should understand that there are some people—they are not very many—who, for one reason or another, do not desire to belong to a trade union. Some of them have conscientious scruples. I must say that they are rather odd people.
I remember hearing a long story from one of my constituents, who had certain quite sincere conscientious reasons why he should not join a union. After I had sympathised with him for a very long time, I found—I hope not to my disappointment—that his conscientious scruples also prevented him from voting. I think that the two very often go together. These people exist, and I would not withhold my comfort, such as it is, for such a person, but I would try to tell him what his duties are. That is the position which trade unions should adopt.

Mr. Porter: Does the hon. Gentleman agree that the type of gentleman to whom he is referring is the type who would say, "We shall have no part in the next world if we do not join this organisation"?

Mr. Gage: That may well be. I am here not to defend those odd views, but to say that people hold them, and hold them sincerely, and it is utterly wrong to condemn them for it. No one knows better than do hon. Gentlemen opposite, who are good trade unionists, what may be the effect on a man who does not join a trade union or who has his cards taken away from him. It is condemning him to economic death.

Mr. Rhys Davies: How comes it that the Tory Party is so keen on the rights of the individual in industry when it unanimously supports military conscription?

Mr. Gage: That is an entirely irrelevant interruption. That is a national matter utterly removed from what we are discussing, and the hon. Gentleman knows that as well as I do.

Mr. L. M. Lever: Is the situation before us tonight any different from that of notice being given by a landlord to a tenant terminating his occupancy and saying that if he is prepared to pay an increased rent, he can continue his tenancy?

Mr. Gage: Of course, it is entirely different. That may be wrong in the circumstances of the case or it may be right. To return to the matter which we are discussing, the important thing is this. Hon. Gentlemen opposite have, quite rightly, said that there was a time when the employers denied to the workmen the right to join a trade union. Of course that was utterly wrong. But hon. Gentlemen opposite should ask themselves whether they are not doing just as wrong a thing now by insisting on a man joining a trade union when the penalty if he does not do so may well be just as severe and as bad as in the days when the employer insisted that he should not.

Mr. Awbery: How can the hon. Member reconcile the two things? For almost a century the Tory Party objected to men joining trade unions. [Interruption.] I have been the organiser of a trade union for 25 years and my experience in that time was that the employers, mainly Liberals and Tories, objected to their men joining a trade union. If a man was a member of a trade union, those employers told him that he could not work for them. Now they have turned their coat and are trying to stand up for the trade unions who have been fighting for the last century for the liberty which the workman enjoys today.

Mr. Gage: I am glad that the hon. Gentleman has made that point. He must not confuse the employers with the Tory Party. I agree that there was a time, no doubt, when employers, quite wrongly—hon. Gentlemen on this side of the House will agree with him on that point—insisted on men not joining a trade union, when the penalty of joining was economic death. Is it any better to reverse the matter and to say that if a man does not join a trade union, the penalty is the same? I submit that the two matters are exactly the same. It is exactly like the wicked squire of old saying "Unless you vote Conservative I will not employ you." Nobody would stand for that now. Why should hon. Gentlemen opposite be so retrograde and reactionary as to stand for something which is just as bad?
Hon. Gentlemen know that there are cases of men who sincerely and honestly take these views. They may be wrong; but do hon. Gentlemen opposite, who are trade unionists, think they are doing the trade union movement a service by in-


sisting that they join, and do they think that they are really strengthening their great movement by doing it?

Mr. Awbery: We are the experts in the trade union movement, and we ought to know whether it is right or not.

Mr. Gage: The trouble is that so many hon. Gentlemen opposite, because they have been in the trade unions, think they are experts on that matter, but are they experts on the freedom of the individual, which is far more important? Is not that very much more important than the right of a person to join or not to join a trade union? I am certain—I say it in all sincerity to hon. Gentlemen opposite—that this is not a matter which can be put right by the employers, the Government, Ministers or this House. The way in which it can be put right is for the trade unions themselves to realise that the days of those restrictive practices are over and that matters have completely changed. They should realise that there are some unfortunate people whose views they should respect just as much as they do the views of their fellow trade unionists, and they should value them as people who, even in the face of economic death, assert their right to their own views.

It being Ten o'Clock, the Motion for the Adjournment of the House lapsed, without Question put.

Motion made, and Question proposed. "That this House do now adjourn."—[Mr. Pearson.]

10.0 p.m.

Mr. Messer: The debate has been very interesting, but some of the speeches have got a little away from the reason for which this discussion took place. There has been on both sides some suggestion that what is being done by the Durham County Council is a threat to liberty; that indeed, trade union membership as a condition of employment is something which threatens the liberty of the subject. Everybody who knows anything at all about trade unionism knows quite well that there has been in operation for many years, trade unionism as a condition of employment. Indeed, when hon. Members opposite read their speeches in tomorrow's "Times" they will read something which has been set up by the mono-type or linotype operator who could not

have got a job unless he had been a member of the London Society of Compositors. It is true of many industries that before a man can start work he must show that he is a member of his trade union.
It is ridiculous to assume that this is something new. Indeed, it was the fight of the trade unionists for years to get 100 per cent. membership in their shop or factory for the purpose of preventing the infiltration of those who, by force of economic circumstances, would have been willing to work at lower than the standard rate of wage and so weaken the trade unions.

Mr. Harmar Nicholls: Would the hon. Member admit that it is new in the sense that a local authority are trying to push it, as distinct from an outside employer?

Mr. Messer: I am coming to that. In one way I regret that the debate has taken place. I want, first, to remove the misconceptions from the minds of those who are not trade unionists that this is something new. In my early days in my trade union we fought as hard as we possibly could to get 100 per cent. trade unionism in the shop or factory where we might be employed, for we knew that, in those days economic circumstances were such that if non-unionists got in, it would probably mean that we would lose our job and that the standard of the worker would be reduced. I know, of course, that a change has taken place. There is now a demand for labour. I think it is true to say that the early struggles of the trade unionists have had their effect and that, indeed, there is not such need today for trade unionism as there was in those early days.
Let me come to the case in question. I am in a large measure of agreement with what has been said by the hon. Member for Luton (Dr. Hill), but I remember quite well what took place at Willesden. I was the chairman of a county council which obtained a Labour majority, a county council which covered the country district of Willesden. What did we do? We did not say to the staff, "You must be a member of an organisation or a trade union." What we did was to send a circular to every member of the staff pointing out the advantages of belonging to their respective organisations and expressing the hope that when negotiations took place with the representative organisation, we would have the assurance that


those negotiations were as much on their behalf as anybody else's because they were members of it.
I regret that we are discussing this matter, because what is to happen at Durham? We have heard talk of liberty and freedom, but the Durham County Council have been democratically elected. They have not done anything which is against the law. If it is wrong to make a condition such as the one they have laid down, then we should have it on the Statute Book. We should not permit an authority to have the power to do these things if it is wrong to do them.

Sir Hugh Lucas-Tooth: Would the hon. Member not agree that it was wrong to compel membership of a political party, for example, and that that is not on the Statute Book?

Mr. Messer: I think it would be distinctly wrong, but there is no relevance in that interruption because there is no comparison. It is an entirely different matter.

Sir H. Lucas-Tooth: But the hon. Member says that it should be on the Statute Book.

Mr. Messer: What I say is that if the power under which the county council are operating is wrong, that power should be changed. There are certain things that a county council cannot do. They cannot build houses, which is a pity. There are a lot of things which by law they are not permitted to do and in this instance they are exercising the power which they have.
What is the Minister of Health to do? Indeed what is the most that he can do? He can merely advise that local authority; he cannot compel them. But I must point out, because I think it is important, that it is unwise to deal with the matter in this way. A local authority is very different from an ordinary employer. An ordinary employer deals with production, with material things, but a local authority deals with services and it is the first responsibility of that authority to see that those services are of as high a standard as they can possibly make them and to give to the people they represent the value of their combined resources. If they do anything which lessens their opportunity of doing that, then they ought seriously to consider whether they are doing the right thing. Notwithstanding that, it would be a very dangerous thing

if from Whitehall instructions were to come to local authorities, who believe that they, being elected by the people, have a right to speak in the name of the people and to answer to the people for the things they do.

10.6 p.m.

Mr. Geoffrey Wilson: When my hon. Friend the Member for Luton (Dr. Hill) opened this debate I had no intention of endeavouring to catch your eye, Sir, because my division in Cornwall is a very long way from Durham. I know nothing of Durham and I have no experience of the medical profession, but I am impelled to make a brief intervention arising from the concluding sentences of the hon. Member for Warrington (Dr. Morgan).
If I understood him aright, he put forward as an argument in favour of the action of Durham County Council that the fact that certain people were not members of a union or an association was unfair, if they gained some benefit from the negotiations which had taken place between the union and the appropriate authority. I gather that a number of hon. Members around him agreed with that point of view because they said, "Hear, hear." I do not know if I am misrepresenting what he said, but I gather that is what he said.
I have heard that argument put forward before, but never for the life of me can I understand it, because it seems a complete misconception of what a trade union is trying to do. I have always understood that, in origin, trade unions were bodies of men in a weaker position than their employers who combined in order to get on an equal footing with their employers, so as to maintain their just rights. If what the unions are trying to do is to maintain rights, such rights are rights for everyone and the fact that a man is not a member of a union does not make him ineligible for such rights.
After all a union is not a band of highway robbers sharing out the loot, but an organisation to secure a measure of justice for all. I cannot understand how it is wrong that someone who is not a trade unionist should benefit from that action. It is quite a different matter from trying to get 100 per cent. membership.

Mr. Awbery: Is the hon. Member aware that trade unions were established to force the employer to give the


rights to the worker and no employer would give them unless the workers were organised efficiently and had industrial power to force him to do so?

Mr. Wilson: I accept the first part of the hon. Member's statement, but not the second. Trade unions were certainly organised in order to obtain rights and, incidentally, their ability to be so organised was brought into law by the Tory Party—[HON. MEMBERS: "No."] If hon. Members want an authority on that, they can go to the first Communist, Mr. Engels, and find a statement to that effect in his book "The Economic Condition of the Working Classes in England in 1844" in which he specifically says that it was the old unreformed Tory Party which was responsible for giving the trade unions their first chance.

Mr. Harrison: Will the hon. Member, my late fellow-worker, allow me to interrupt him? He says the Tory Party granted the privilege of trade union organisation in this country. Will he also quote Engels and say that in that particular booklet, he mentioned the fact that it was through agitation in the ranks of the working class that the Conservative Party granted that privilege?

Mr. Wilson: No, I do not think this is a debate on Engels, but if the hon. Member will look at the footnote at the bottom of the page he will see that, by name, Engels exonerates the leaders of the Tory Party of that day. He mentioned Disraeli, Ashley and others.

Mr. Awbery: Mr. Awbery rose—

Mr. Wilson: Time is getting late and I must bring my remarks to a close.

Dr. Morgan: Dr. Morgan rose—

Hon. Members: Sit down.

Dr. Morgan: The hon. Member did mention me by name. I think the hon. Member is misrepresenting everything I said. [HON. MEMBERS: "No."] That is my view. What I am asking for is that every member of a team should play his part, and it is false cricket if a man refuses to do his job when others are doing it.

Mr. Wilson: Having given the hon. Member an opportunity of saying that I misrepresented him, it would take too much time to reply. Time is going on and I shall not continue except to say with

regard to the hon. Member for Tottenham (Mr. Messer) that I did not follow his argument either. He said that the struggles of the early trade unionists to get 100 per cent. trade unionism were analogous to the attitude taken up by Durham County Council. But there must be a difference between endeavouring to recruit 100 per cent. membership for a trade union and what the County Council are saying to people already in jobs, that they must join a trade union at short notice. I think that must be wrong.

10.13 p.m.

Sir Richard Acland: I wish to give my support to what is considered on these benches to be the unpopular line put forward by my hon. Friend the Member for Stalybridge and Hyde (Mr. Lang), and to hang my remarks on an interjection made by my hon. Friend the Member for Bristol, Central (Mr. Awbery), who said at a certain point: "We are the experts on trade union matters." Granting, as one who is not a trade unionist, that that is correct, I would say that in this House we are engaged not merely in conducting trade union matters—

Dr. Morgan: We are defending them.

Sir R. Acland: —we are engaged in governing the country. I speak not as a trade unionist, but as a typical Fabian type, or a Socialist Christian, or what you will, and I say that people with vague ideas such as mine would never have seen any of their ideas translated into facts at all, if it were not for all the solid strength of the trade union movement. Nevertheless, although I acknowledge all that, I suggest that the trade union movement is not something which can govern this country without winning full co-operation of a whole lot of people who, for want of a better name, I call the bourgeoisie. These people are represented here by such people as the hon. Member for Stalybridge and Hyde and myself; and although it is perfectly true that the majority, probably normally, naturally and instinctively, vote Tory, yet the Labour movement will not govern this country unless some of those types vote Labour.

Mr. Awbery: But is it not a fact that it was this House that passed. And is passing, regulations governing the trade union movement? In 1800 we had the Combination Act; in 1824 we had another


Bill which the Tory Party brought in, and thereby claims to have given freedom to the trade union movement.

Sir R. Acland: Of course it is the fact that this House often passes legislation dealing with trade union questions I only ask my trade union colleagues to realise that our support is required in governing the country, and that there is a fear amongst the people for whom I can speak about the head offices of the big trade union hierarchies seeking and obtaining more and more power. They ought to be persuaded to pay respect to the genuine feeling of large numbers of people and to restrain their hands—and they ought not to seem to seek greater power over individuals.

10.17 p.m.

The Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Health (Mr. Blenkinsop): We have had a longer debate than might have been expected originally by the hon. Member for Luton (Dr. Hill) or by any other hon. Member. On the whole, it has been an interesting discussion and I do not regret that it has taken place.
The hon. Member for Luton referred to a circular issued by the Ministry of Health to local authorities on 6th December, 1946, in which we made quite clear our view of the matter. The hon. Member read out the relative part of that circular. That is still the view of the Department and, indeed, of the Government on this question.
Therefore we regret the resolution passed by the Durham County Council. At the same time we are most anxious that members of local authorities, as well as other workers in regular employment, should join their respective trade union or professional body, and we are anxious that they should be at full liberty to do so. When we hear hon. Members on the other side of the House raising this matter, as they are fully entitled to do, we hope they will also take all the action they can with such employers as still take the view that they will not provide employment for those who are members of their trade union or professional body.
Not only did we send out that circular, but I would draw the attention of hon. Members to the reply of my right hon. Friend at a later date in 1948 when, in reply to a Question put by the then Mem-

ber for Harborough, my right hon. Friend replied:
I hope that persons employed in the National Health Service will be encouraged to belong to their appropriate organizations, but it will not be a condition of employment, and there will be no pressure upon anyone to belong to any organisation, whether professional or trade union."—[OFFICIAL. REPORT, 29th January, 1948; Vol. 446. c. 197.]
That view has also been expressed by my right hon. Friend the Minister of Labour in another connection. Therefore, we regret the action taken by the Durham County Council and we will certainly take the measures that are open to us. The House should remember, however, that we are concerned here merely with advising local authorities on matters of this kind. However, we will take the measures that are open to us to make sure that the attention of the Durham County Council is drawn to the circular we issued in 1946 and the reply of my right hon. Friend in 1948.
I repeat that our first anxiety must be for the proper running of the service in the country and for the proper treatment of patients. That must really remain the first responsibility of the local authority concerned. While we are no less anxious than we have ever been to encourage every member of the staff, whether it be of a hospital or any other employment, to join their trade union, and we are also anxious to secure that proper facilities should be made available, we are equally anxious that unilateral action of this kind should not be taken by a local authority.

Dr. Hill: Would the Parliamentary Secretary permit me to press him on one point? It is the time table in this matter which is important. Will he take the action which he has described with the least possible delay, because next Wednesday is the date by which a particularly difficult decision has to be taken.

Mr. Blenkinsop: The hon. Member will understand that the only attitude which we can take up is one of advice to the authority in this matter. We fully appreciate the point made by the hon. Member for Tottenham (Mr. Messer) that they are the locally elected body and have full power in this matter.

10.23 p.m.

Sir Hugh Lucas-Tooth: All of us will welcome the statement made by the Parliamentary Secre-


tary. The only thing I wish to add is to ask that the advice his Department gives should be in the strongest possible terms; he should make it quite clear that the action taken is wholly deplored by his Minister. I would say a word to those hon. Members present who represent Durham constituencies and who could add very powerfully to the advice given by the Minister. We on this side of the House have the impression that a certain number of hon. Members, particularly those representing Durham constituencies, do not altogether agree with what has been said from their own Front Bench.
I would put forward one argument in addition to those which have been presented this evening. They have said, more in the course of interruption than in speeches, that they would be prepared to agree that it would be wrong for the Durham County Council, or indeed any employer, to compel membership of a particular union. I do not think that they would quarrel with that proposition. It may be that in some cases there is a choice of union. But it may very well be that there are cases where for all practical purposes there is no choice of union.
If they persist in the course they are now taking they must recognise that where there is only one effective union, and that union supports a particular political policy, they are in effect compelling individuals either to join a political party in which they do not believe—and I do not think they wish to do that—or alter, natively to form splinter unions. That is the only possible alternative and I would seriously commend that argument to their attention.

Dr. Morgan: The hon. Member does not know the Trades Union Act.

Sir H. Lucas-Tooth: I do not believe that splinter unions are as a rule desirable and I say, that quite candidly. But if hon. Members opposite pursue the kind of policy they are arguing they can only produce ultimately either political compulsion or splinter unions. I beg hon. Members to see that and to use their influence in Durham to prevent any such thing occurring.

Mr. Awbery: Do I understand from the Parliamentary Secretary that when he communicates with Durham it will be an

expression of opinion and not an instruction to the Durham County Council?

Mr. Blenkinsop: I think I have made it abundantly clear that we cannot send an instruction on this matter. The view of the Ministry which has been expressed will be brought to the attention of the authorities concerned.

10.25 p.m.

Mr. John McKay: I am disgusted at the attitude of the Ministry on this question. We talk about liberty and freedom, but we should remember that history tells us that we gain more liberty by curtailing the opportunities of minority peoples in certain conditions. We trade union men who have worked in the movement and have known something of the rotten conditions that existed in industrial circles for years, know that it has been through the trade unions that any reasonable kind of conditions have been obtained. In those circumstances is it fair that an individual minority party or a block of individuals within a big movement, should be able to prevent thousands of people enjoying the results of many years of collective bargaining?
As a result of collective bargaining there has been a gradual improvement in the working conditions and the remuneration which is paid. The whole question of justice and of liberty centres on whether small numbers within these industries, who refuse to be associated with the bodies engaged in the collective bargaining, should he allowed to enjoy the advantages which the trade unions have brought to their fellow men. We can argue about liberty in all kinds of ways, but what amazes me is that the Ministry of Labour, which has no power to enforce one thing or the other, has deliberately expressed a view to the effect that the trade unions should not use their collective bargaining powers to bring in a few men who would recognise nothing or nobody. There will always be that type of individual who believes he knows everything, and who thinks that he gets no gain or advantage from collective—

The Question having heel proposed at Ten o'Clock and the Debate having continued half an hour, Mr. SPEAKER adjourned the House without Question put, pursuant to the Standing Order.

Adjourned at Half-past Ten o'Clock.